The United States has an affirmative obligation to ensure the highest levels of education and protection for its children. Unfortunately, the administration's unwillingness to meet this obligation is evident in its consistent failure to make available the financial and other support necessary for schools to provide the education required to adequately prepare our children for the successful administration of the country in the future. Even more unfortunate, however, is the administration's failure to provide the financial and moral backing for a nationwide drive to install seat belts on school buses because this failure threatens the physical safety of our children. Sadly, this failure is merely symptomatic of the country's general failure to dedicate itself to the protection of its children.
There is no federal mandate requiring seat belts on school buses and only a few states have enacted legislation in support of such a position. Nonetheless, even states such as New York, New Jersey, and Illinois, which have all enacted school-bus-seat-belt legislation do not mandate retrofitting and installation of seat belts on all buses. Illinois, for example, only mandates installation on new, type II (smaller) buses. New York's 1986 law only provides each local school-district with the option of mandating seat belts, mandating only that new buses be delivered with lap belts (Langford 13). Similarly, the 1992 New Jersey law requires installation of lap belts on new buses (NJSA 39:3B-10). The law does not require retrofitting of old school-buses, but it is a step up from the New York law.
California offers a contrast that, unfortunately, is more representative of the current status of legislation around the nation. In 1987, California completed a report that concluded existing research weighed against the mandatory installation of lap belts in type I school buses (CHPMCS 1-3). As to frontal collisions without rollover, the stud...