NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Federal officials are renewing their call for new rules to require seat belts on school buses. This comes as we mark two years since a crash killed a child in Meigs County.
That bus crash killed the school bus driver and a 7-year-old and injured more than a dozen other students. The National Transportation Safety Board said those injuries could have been prevented if the students were wearing seat belts.
After watching the inside cameras that were on the bus, investigators found that several of the passengers were not seated properly at the time the bus collided with a utility truck that crossed into oncoming traffic.
The bus did not have seat belts, and the NTSB said if students were wearing both lap and shoulder belts properly, this tragedy could have been prevented.
Along with recommending seatbelts, NTSB is calling for new vehicles weighing over 10 thousand pounds to have lane departure prevention systems. The board is also recommending onboard video recordings on all buses... and having those recordings checked periodically for safe bus behavior.
The board keeps renewing these recommendations, in hopes that another bus crash like the one in Decatur never happens again.
