Starting July 1st, 2019 all newly purchased school buses must come equipped with lap-shoulder seats belts. I have never been a huge fan of the seatbelt idea for school buses but with all of the new types of seatbelts available I am eager to further review the research they will be producing!
As always seatbelts will remain a hot topic. With Nevada becoming the 7th state to have a school bus seatbelt law there are many changes on the horizon.
They are one of the few that have named a specific type of belt to be required and the law only states that any “newly purchased school buses” must be equipped. That said, most school bus companies do not buy brand new school buses and that means that there is a very simpler work around for this law.
Another problem is that even thought the belts are required, it will be nearly impossible to enforce that students are wearing them let alone wearing them properly. This oversight is not something we can demand the driver to watch for and the budget of almost all districts restricts the ability to add a second adult to a route to oversee the students are following this new demand.
All in all the demand that buses come with seatbelts may not change anything unless they can come up with a way to make sure the student wear them.
Haleigh