Seat belt law looms with no set plan

TEA slashed funding, LBB waiting to authorize

Updated: Tuesday, 08 May 2012, 2:32 PM CDT
Published : Tuesday, 31 Aug 2010, 12:14 PM CDT

AUSTIN (KXAN) - With only one day to go, the likelihood of the Texas School Bus Seat Belt Program going into effect on its original Sept. 1 start date is wavering.

Various agencies are slowing the law's implementation, from cuts to funding to suggestions that the program be changed altogether.

KXAN has obtained a Texas Transportation Institute report with specific recommendations in light of a major funding cut to the program.

The law dates back to a 2006 bus crash involving a Beaumont high school girl’s soccer team. Two teens died, and several others sustained severe injuries. The parents of those teens worked with lawmakers to create the program in the following months. The vehicle did not have safety belts of any sort.

According to the law, which passed in the 2007 legislative session and received a $10 million allocation in 2009, TTI and the Texas Education Agency were meant to develop the “Implementation Plan for Equipping Texas School Buses with Lap/Shoulder Restraints” together. Staff members from the office of Sen. Eddie Lucio (D)-Brownsville, who wrote the bill, say TEA did not participate in that report as effectively as it could have.

Click here to view Josh’s blog post about the number of Texas bus crashes considered in the TTI report.

Watch Josh's original KXAN investigation into the seat belt program here .

While TTI agrees that “lap/shoulder belt restraint systems, when correctly used by school bus occupants, can decrease injuries and fatalities in crashes," it also states “no system is guaranteed to prevent all injuries.” The law requires all new school buses bought by districts in Texas to have lap/shoulder (three-point) belts on board. Lucio's office said the original allocation would have bought about 1,300 new buses and strapped in between 75,000 and 80,000 students in the state.

The process should have been as follows:

1.) TTI and TEA generate the report for review by the Legislative Budget Board , 2.) LBB reviews the report and authorizes TEA to distribute the funds, 3.) TEA reimburses school districts buying new buses with the three-point belts.

Lucio’s office has stated: “The plan is complete and authorization is pending. Implementation of the School Bus Seat Belt Program and reimbursement plan should begin on Wednesday.”

On Tuesday, TEA told KXAN it "respects and supports the decision of the governor and legislature to encourage seat belts in Texas school buses. Our agency is still waiting on an approved implementation plan from the Legislative Budget Board, and we cannot legally implement the program until that legislative approval is received.

"Once we are given direction about how to distribute the money, we will make funding available for school bus seat belts for fiscal year 2011, which begins tomorrow," the agency continued.

One of the main concerns in a possible delay involves funding. When Gov. Rick Perry ordered all state agencies to cut their budgets by 5%, TEA chose to slash the seat belt program from the original $10 million to $3.6 million.

TEA told KXAN it chose that program because LBB had not yet authorized the funds. LBB said the law is only in effect as long as money is available in the fund.

In considering that authorization, LBB received the TTI report in June, almost three months before the Sept. 1 deadline. KXAN obtained the report on Monday, the first day LBB was able to say its review was, in fact, finished. With just a few days left before the start date, LBB still had not authorized TEA to distribute the funds. An LBB spokesperson said he does not know when that action might happen.

Lucio’s office feels the cut TEA made to the program is stalling its implementation. After speaking with parents Tuesday, Lucio said, "What we're missing in my humble opinion is an agency with common sense."

"TEA has clearly forgotten who they work for - the parents of Texas," he continued.

That proposed cut was first detailed in a letter to LBB and the governor’s Budget, Planning, and Policy Division at the end of March. Responding to LBB saying a Middle School Fitness appropriation should be exempt from the 5% cut, TEA chose to instead cut the seat belt program by almost $6.4 million.

Lucio said he is now working with TEA, the governor's office, and the lieutenant governor's office to restore the full $10 million amount allocated.

"TEA's actions after the fact seems to be just a malicious attack on the bill itself," said Steve Forman, whose daughter was severely injured in the 2006 crash.

The TTI report specifically states: “All programs funded from the Texas general revenue fund are likely to be subject to some level of budget reductions in the coming fiscal year. Therefore, a priority system for implementation is recommended.”

“As parents, we were caught off-guardr,” said Brad Brown, whose daughter Ashley, 16, died in the Beaumont bus crash in 2006. "We knew we were in for a struggle, and we were prepared to see it through."

Brown said he

would like to see LBB speed up its authorization to meet the Sept. 1 deadline.

"(It's so) that no other dad has to budry a 16-year-old daughter simply because proper safety measures were taken."

While TTI’s survey reveals parents are generally in favor of seat belts on school buses and support the state paying for them, school transportation directors had a different view. 65 percent of school transportation directors said they do not plan on adding them.

TTI cites “monitoring seat belt use while the bus is in motion or driving task” as a possible negative effect on safety, further stating: “The highest priority has to be a focus on the driving task.”

TEA has now suggested the program become voluntary. Instead, TTI said priority should be given to the highest ranking risks to safety:

Crashworthiness of vehicles – The safer the structure and crash performance of the vehicle, the lower the risk.
Risk to occupants – In this case, the larger the number of pupil passengers per trip, the greater exposure to risk.
Risk by location – In this case, the types of roadways where injury and severity of crashes pose higher risk.

Priority 1 – Equip vehicles that will have highest safety benefit from addition of lap/shoulder belts: small buses and motor coaches.

Based on crash-related statistics, TTI says smaller buses pose a higher risk for injury or death because of their “size and lower weight and resulting crash performance.”
Motor coaches, which are not required to meet school bus safety standards, “pose higher risks because the structure of this type of vehicle…increases the risk for ejection and injuries in rollover-type crashes.”

Priority II – Equip buses that are used in counties with the highest number of serious bus crashes for use on high-speed, two-lane routes and with the highest average pupil density on those routes.

TTI says lap/shoulder belts can lower risk of injury and death in areas with the greatest number of passengers on higher-speed-two-lane routes. This correlates with the school districts in the most populous counties. “Pupil density,” or the number of students on each bus, should also be a factor. Counties with the highest number of serious school bus crashes combined with the highest number of passengers (over the most recent three-year period when data is available) are: Harris, Dallas, Bexar, Tarrant, hidalgo, Montgomery, and Travis.

Priority III – Equip buses on high-speed two-lane routes in other counties, in order of decreasing linear density.

TTI says, even in less populous counties, crashes causing injuries happen more often on high-speed (55 mph or more), two-lane, undivided roads. TTI says the greatest numbers of injuries happen with a higher number of passengers on the longest routes.

TTI Recommendations for Implementation

Districts applying for funds would need to show adding buses with belts would not mean fewer students could ride the bus and therefore be forced to find alternative transportation.
There should be a training program for drivers and students to learn to correct way to use the belts, the consequences of incorrect use, how to buckle and unbuckle the belts, and how to release belts in event of an emergency.
Incentives should be given to districts committing to providing monitors or aides in belt use. Reimbursement should include the cost of new electronic sensing equipment (as it becomes available) that “records usage, alerts the driver to non-use, and provides automatic emergency belt release.”
Districts receiving funds should agree “to have their routes audited by TEA or its designee to assess lap/shoulder belt use.”

“Because school bus crashes, particularly those with fatalities and serious injuries are rare, unpredictable events, the implementation of lap shoulder belts on buses may not mitigate against crashes that could occur in a county that has never experienced an injury-producing school bus crash,” the TTI report sums up. “Further the seat belt treatment offers potential safety benefits under a limited range of conditions and should not be considered an all-purpose preventative measure against school bus occupant injury in all types of crashes.”