DiMauro insisted that seat belts on school buses “carry their own safety risks,” including the oft-cited fear that students might become stuck in their seats during emergencies. The union president also noted that HB 279 does not provide any state funds to school districts, leaving the exorbitant costs of retrofitting each and every existing Ohio school bus with local school districts.
State Rep. Bernie Willis, R-Springfield, sponsored HB 279 in the wake of a school bus crash that killed a Northwestern Local School District elementary student and injured dozens more earlier this year.
Aiden Clark, the 11-year-old boy who was tragically killed in the Northwestern bus crash, was ejected from the bus, which toppled over after being hit by an oncoming minivan and taking an evasive maneuver. Clark’s death was the first of any Ohio student on a school bus since 2010.
“While we will never be able to bring peace to the parents who lost their son on this tragic day, we can take measures to ensure an incident like this never occurs again,” said Willis, a first-term Republican who represents the school district.
Willis’ bill would require every school bus purchased, owned, leased or rented by a school district to be equipped with seat belts for each student within five years of passage. The bill makes no mention of requiring students to wear seat belts.
Willis said he intends HB 279 to be the vehicle for school transportation safety reforms to be recommended later this year by the Ohio School Bus Safety Working Group, a task force brought together by Gov. Mike DeWine within weeks of the fatal crash.
A spokesperson for DeWine noted that the group has not yet made any recommendations and has taken no official stance on school bus seat belts.
The group has heard from some school districts that have experimented with mandatory seat belts, including northeast Ohio’s Avon Lake City Schools, which purchased two new buses in 2019 equipped with three seat belts per bench. Students on those two buses were required to wear seat belts up until the COVID-19 pandemic.
Superintendent Joelle Magyar told the task force that Avon Lake City Schools’ younger students struggled with getting their seat belts buckled, some students tampered with the seat belts, and some students would sometimes get stuck under the seat belt when it was their turn to get off the bus, lengthening route times.
“Bus drivers, when given the choice to drive the bus with seat belts or not, always chose the bus without seat belts,” Magyar wrote in her presentation. She said the district has since changed course on mandatory seat belts, leaving it up to students.
Based on its experience, Avon Lake City Schools recommended that the task force steer clear from mandatory seat belt laws in Ohio.
The Ohio School Bus Safety Working Group will hold its next meeting on Nov. 16 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Ohio Department of Public Safety in Columbus.
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