Panel Pushes for Safety Changes on School Buses

WASHINGTON — More safety features are needed on the nation’s 41,000 small school buses to protect children in accidents, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday.

James Kolstad, acting board chairman, said an investigation into the buses that make up 10% to 15% of the total school bus fleet shows that injuries to students in accidents generally have been minor.

“But the board believes that improvements can be made,” Kolstad said in discussing the report adopted by the board Wednesday.

The report found small buses to be generally safe but called for improved front-door latches and windshield retention and several tests to determine whether tough standards for larger buses should be extended to those built to carry between 10 and 24 children.

The board said that although school buses remain one of the safest of all forms of transportation, some smaller buses have been modified in ways that increase the chance of injury in a crash, particularly to children in the front row.

“In some cases, passenger lap belts and other restraints had been installed . . . in a manner inconsistent with federal standards for seat belts, diminishing crash protection and increasing the potential to induce injury,” the board said in its findings. “ . . . Small school buses lack the built-in crash advantage of superior size and weight provided by large school buses.”