Mass transit considerations




Busesedit

School busesedit

In the US, six states—California, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, and Texas—require seat belts on school buses.

Pros and cons had been alleged about the use of seatbelts in school buses. School buses, which are much bigger in size than the average vehicle, allow for the mass transportation of students from place to place. The American School Bus Council states in a brief article saying that, “The children are protected like eggs in an egg carton – compartmentalized, and surrounded with padding and structural integrity to secure the entire container.” (ASBC). Although school buses are considered safe for mass transit of students this will not guarantee that the students will be injury-free if an impact were to occur. Seatbelts in buses are sometimes believed to make recovering from a roll or tip harder for students and staff as they could be easily trapped in their own safety belt.

In 2015, for the first time, NHTSA endorsed seat belts on school buses.

Motor coachesedit

In the European Union, all new long-distance buses and coaches must be fitted with seat belts.

Australia has required lap/sash seat belts in new coaches since 1994. These must comply with Australian Design Rule 68, which requires the seat belt, seat and seat anchorage to withstand 20g deceleration and an impact by an unrestrained occupant to the rear.

In the United States, NHTSA has now required lap-shoulder seat belts in new "over-the-road" buses (includes most coaches) starting in 2016.

Trainsedit

The use of seatbelts in trains has been investigated. Concerns about survival space intrusion in train crashes and increased injuries to unrestrained or incorrectly restrained passengers led the researchers to discourage the use of seat belts in trains.

"It has been shown that there is no net safety benefit for passengers who choose to wear 3-point restraints on passenger-carrying rail vehicles. Generally, passengers who choose not to wear restraints in a vehicle modified to accept 3-point restraints receive marginally more severe injuries."

Airplanesedit

Lap belts are found on all passenger aircraft. Unlike road vehicles, aircraft seat belts are not primarily designed for crash protection. In fact, their main purpose is to keep passengers in their seats during events such as turbulence. Many civil aviation authorities require a "fasten seat belt" sign in passenger aircraft that can be activated by a pilot during takeoff, turbulence, and landing. The International Civil Aviation Organization recommends the use of child restraints. Some airline authorities, including the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), permit the use of airline infant lap belts (sometimes known as an infant loop or belly belt) to secure an infant under two sitting on an adults lap.

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History

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Seat belts were invented by English engineer George Cayley to use on his glider, in the mid-19th century. By 1950, almost every race-car driver used safety seat belts. In 1946, Dr. C. Hunter Shelden opened a neurological practice at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California. In the early 1950s, Dr. Shelden made a major contribution to the automotive industry with his idea of retractable seat belts. This came about from his care of the high number of head injuries coming through the emergency room. He investigated the early seat belts whose primitive designs were implicated in these injuries and deaths. To reduce the high level of injuries he was seeing, he proposed, in late 1955, retractable seat belts, recessed steering wheels, reinforced roofs, roll bars, automatic door locks, and passive restraints such as the air bag. Subsequently, in 1966, Congress passed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act requiring all automobiles to comply with certain safety standards....
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Technology

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Effectiveness

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An analysis conducted in the United States in 1984 compared a variety of seat belt types alone and in combination with air bags. The range of fatality reduction for front seat passengers was broad, from 20% to 55%, as was the range of major injury, from 25% to 60%. More recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has summarized these data by stating "seat belts reduce serious crash-related injuries and deaths by about half." Most seatbelt malfunctions are a result of there being too much slack in the seatbelt at the time of the accident. unreliable source?
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