Fatal school bus accident prompts seat belt debate

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A tragic school bus accident in Hutsville, Alabama this week that killed four students and injured more than 30 others has raised a serious debate about requiring seat belts on school buses. Many believe that the children who lost their lives might be alive today had they been wearing seat belts.

With so many school bus accidents occuring throughout the United States, many citizens and lawmakers think it's time to require all school buses to have seat belts.

An editorial on Home News Tribune Online gets to the heart of the matter:

Twenty students on average are killed every year in accidents while riding school buses. Even so, school buses remain the safest way to travel to and from school. It's just that school buses could be made a lot safer if they were equipped with seat belts. So, what's the holdup? Although there are roughly 580,000 school buses in operation across the United States, the expense per school district to retrofit them with seat belts or require that new buses come with seat belts isn't all that great, at least when measured against the payoff in terms of lives that would be saved, not to mention everyone's peace of mind. The investment is well worth it.

To protect our children, it's time for lawmakers to make school buses safer by investing in seat belts.