Nancy Melucci wrote:
>Listmembers,
>
>7 preschoolers were killed this week in a small town north of Montreal,
>Canada when their day care provider elected to take them on an outing in a
>minivan without ensuring that all where properly secured in car and booster
>seats.
>
>Please visit this website for tips and flyers that you can print out and
>share with others who care about children.
>
>http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/childps/
>
>This event was a senseless and heartbreaking tragedy. Let's all work to
>prevent these unnecessary deaths and injuries.
>
>Not even for one minute should a child be in a moving vehicle without a
>proper safety restraint (Hey! And adults shouldn't be without'em, either!)
Enjoying a break from teaching-related activities ;-), I checked out this
site to see if a pet peeve of mine from here in Canada also exists in the
US --- that despite all the campaigns for making the installation and use
of seat belts mandatory in cars, belts are not required in school buses.
Here, when there was a push for such legislation a few years ago, there was
stiff opposition, not only from the manufacturers, as might be expected,
but from school districts as well, since here most operate their own buses,
and would bear much of the cost. They cited the high cost of having to
retrofit all buses; yet they pointedly refused to accept a compromise which
would have seen the requirement only apply to new buses. Had the
requirement been phased in then, all buses today would be equipped with
seat belts, and the cost would not have been inordinate.
Sady, I see from the NTHSA website that the situation is the same in the
US. I had to use the search engine to find any mention of school buses at
all, but it pointed me to the following information at *NTHSA Youth &
Generation X Planner, School Bus Safety Talking Points*:
*****
<snip>
Why No Safety Belts?
On school buses, occupant protection is provided by
"compartmentalization," not safety belts. Compartmentalization is the
name for the protective envelope created by strong, closely-spaced
seats that have energy-absorbing high seat backs that protect
occupants in the event of a crash.
School buses also have other features that contribute to the high level
of safety they provide each occupant. Features such as emergency
exits, roof structure, fuel systems, and body joint strength make the bus
stronger, larger, heavier, and safer than most other vehicles on the road
today.
<snip>
*****
Wow! There must be a teaching application in this after all --- maybe in
cognitive psychology, under distortions of logic, or perhaps in social
psychology, under propaganda.
Back to my grading.
Larry Dickerson
Selkirk College
Castlegar, BC Canada
