Plan To Put Seatbelts On School Buses May Be Dead For The Year, But Sponsor Says Not For Good

The sponsor of a plan to put seatbelts on all school buses says she believes the measure is in a good position to pass the state legislature next year.

Lawmakers officially put the proposal on hold this week, but only after it got farther than many thought possible.

Resistance to putting seatbelts on buses has typically come from school districts. They say seatbelts are expensive and won’t necessarily save lives. Bus drivers also worry they’d be held liable if kids don’t use them.

But those arguments were less powerful after a crash last year in Chattanooga claimed the lives of six children.

The proposal needed to clear only one more committee in the House and in the Senate to get final votes in each chamber. State Rep. JoAnne Favors, D-Chattanooga, says that is progress.

“A tremendous amount of effort and energy has gone into getting to this point,” she says, “and so the best option was to roll it to next year.”

The idea has been floating around the Tennessee legislature for the better part of a decade, and Favors says she still doesn’t have enough support to get the seatbelt requirement all the way through. She’ll spend the next few months trying to make the case to school officials and to the staffing company that supplies drivers to Chattanooga and many other districts.

Favors says research from other states shows seatbelts do make buses safer, and they have the side benefit of making students better behaved, because riders tend to stay buckled in.