Interpretation ID: aiam4583
DC 20515;
"Dear Mr. Smith: Thank you for your letter to Secretary Skinner o behalf of your constituent, Mrs. Maureen Andrews, of Derry. You expressed concern about the absence of safety belts for school bus passengers and about the number of persons to occupy a school bus seat. I've been asked to respond to your letter since the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is responsible for administering Federal programs relating to school bus safety. The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 authorizes NHTSA to issue motor vehicle safety standards for new motor vehicles, including school buses. In 1974, Congress amended the Act to direct NHTSA to issue motor vehicle safety standards addressing various aspects of school bus safety, such as seating systems, windows and windshields, emergency exits, and fuel system integrity. Pursuant to that authority, NHTSA issued a comprehensive set of motor vehicle safety standards to make school buses, already a safe mode of transportation, even safer. We have considered the safety belt issue in connection with our safety standard for school bus passenger crash protection, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 222. Standard No. 222 requires that large school buses provide passenger crash protection through a concept called 'compartmentalization.' Providing compartmentalization entails improving the interior of the school bus with protective seat backs, additional seat padding, and better seat spacing and performance. These interior features are intended to keep occupants in their seating area and protect them during a crash. They ensure that a system of crash protection is provided to passengers independent of whether these passengers use safety belts. For your information, I have enclosed a copy of our notice terminating a rulemaking proceeding to decide whether Standard No. 222 should be amended to specify certain requirements for safety belts voluntarily installed on new large school buses. We decided not to amend the standard since these belts appear to be currently installed in a manner that ensures adequate safety performance. The notice provides a thorough discussion of the safety belt issues raised by Mrs. Andrews. As explained in the notice, school buses in this country have compiled an excellent safety record. In addition to meeting compartmentalization requirements, large school buses differ from small school buses in that they have greater mass, higher seating height and high visibility to other motorists. For all of these reasons, the need for safety belts to mitigate against injuries and fatalities in large school buses is not the same as that for smaller vehicles, such as small school buses. Thus, although Standard No. 222 does require safety belts for passengers in small school buses, we conclude that a Federal requirement for the installation of safety belts in large school buses is not justified at this time. Mrs. Andrews also asks about requirements that apply to the number of children that are allowed to sit on a bench seat. We are not authorized by Congress to regulate the number of persons that may occupy a school bus seat. However, for the purpose of ensuring that school bus manufacturers properly design their large school buses, we do specify the method for establishing the number of designated seating positions on a bench seat. The number of seating positions on a bench seat is calculated under Standard No. 222 by dividing the bench width in inches by 15 and rounding the result to the nearest whole number. Under this formula, a 39 inch bench seat has three seating positions. (39 divided by 15 = 2.6, which is rounded to 3) For small school buses, the determination of the number of positions ensures that the bench seat would have sufficient restraint systems for the maximum number of persons that should ever occupy the seat, and that the seat provides crash protection to all these persons. For large school buses, the determination ensures that the forces applied to the seat during compliance tests are reasonable reflections of the number of occupants and of the crash forces that would be involved in a real-world crash. It should be noted, however, that the number of seating positions derived from the Standard No. 222 formula is not meant to be an absolute measure of the seating capacity of the bus, irrespective of occupant size. We recognize that, in practice, school buses transport a tremendously wide variety of student sizes. For example, while a bus that may be capable of easily accommodating 65 preschool or elementary students, it may be capable of carrying only 43 high school students. When the bus is used to transport students of widely varying ages and sizes, the appropriate capacity of the bus will fall somewhere between those two values. The decision on how many passengers may be comfortably and safely accommodated, therefore, is a decision that must be reached by the bus operator, in light of the ages and sizes of passengers involved, and in accordance with state and local requirements. Since NHTSA does not have the authority to regulate how States use school buses, the agency could not preclude a State from allowing the number of passengers on a bench seat to exceed the number of designated seating positions on that seat. However, we agree with Mrs. Andrews that a student should not stand while riding in a school bus. We agree further that a student should not sit on a seat unless the student can sit fully on the seat instead of sitting only partially on the seat and thus only being partially protected by the compartmentalization. We believe that Mrs. Andrews' concerns as they apply to public schools would be best addressed by her working with the local school board and state officials. I hope this information is helpful. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Sincerely, Diane K. Steed Enclosure";