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ACL
Senior Member
USA
53 Posts |
 Posted - 02/22/2020 : 07:13:22 AM
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Back to the ejection thing, I'm thinking about the relevant statistics that we could compile. The reports give plenty of information on what happened to each passenger, but there isn't really a way to normalize the severity of the accident, so it's hard to really compare injuries or ejection risk between accidents.
I think we can agree that ejection is bad. Sounds obvious, but obvious doesn't necessarily cut it. My thinking is that once the ejection has happened the outcome is completely uncontrolled, so we can't say that ejection under this condition is OK whereas ejection under that condition isn't. Ejection puts the person at elevated risk for crushing and blunt trauma. I think the statistics would bear that out; we can show it but it probably doesn't need to be the focus.
So given that assumption (if we may), what would be the relevant numbers? Percent unbelted fatalities vs. belted fatalities vs all ejections? There's some bias here regarding what accidents are investigated. In a rollover it seems you'd want to distinguish between blunt trauma of kids hitting the roof vs. the ones that didn't because they were belted in. But if no one died, the statistics generally aren't available (with the exception of Milton).
28 accidents over 30+ years isn't much data to work with given that FMVSS changed during that time.
Bryan, what do you think would be the right numbers to compare? |
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ACL
Senior Member
USA
53 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2020 : 09:01:03 AM
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Also, getting to your point about improving window integrity, is the problem is that the glass comes out of the window or the window comes out of the bus? For cars we have had (for a few years) FMVSS-226 but their window systems are constructed very differently. Also 226 is not for vehicles over 10,000 pounds.
In order to argue that window integrity addresses the fatality risk adequately, you'll not only have to show that you can keep them in the bus but also that the non-ejection fatalities aren't reduced by seat belts. Personally I think that won't be possible; seat belt use has been studied to death and I think that argument is over. Citing a case where a kid would have been crushed had he been restrained in a particular seat is, to me, kind of like using the "thrown clear" argument which was big back in the day: sure there are cases where X but in general Y.
Anyway, I don't want to put words in your mouth here and maybe I don't have your position entirely understood, so let's get back to the data. |
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ACL
Senior Member
USA
53 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2020 : 4:42:26 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Thomasbus24
My only concern with laminate glass is the difficulty of breaking it for emergency egress. See NTSB for Alton, Texas crash in the 80s. Bus submerged, multiple drownings, those trying to save the kids reported the glass wasn't able to be broken out, it was laminate.
Just read the report again; it stated tempered in the place I saw (page 19). Did it say laminate elsewhere? |
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Thomasbus24
Administrator
USA
4547 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2020 : 05:58:05 AM
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| I apologize, you are correct...it was tempered glass. Now I'm wondering what report I read that in. Could have been motorcoach. |
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bwest
Administrator
United States
3820 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2020 : 09:28:52 AM
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| Sorry, been pretty busy around here. Eating lunch and catching up on this. I guess my concern is that seat belts won't be used by every student every time. I believe laminated glass would be a logical first step in coming to terms with this problem. As for the study; I think all injuries (fatal and otherwise) in rollovers and any crash that there was a death or ejection. If there's data to show that there isn't a correlation between ejection and death, then there wouldn't be an argument to keep students inside the bus. I, again, go back to the fact that we can't guarantee that a seat belt will be used each and every time. We can guarantee that a laminate window, constructed correctly, will stay in and therefore keep the child in the vehicle. |
Bryan |
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ACL
Senior Member
USA
53 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2020 : 07:24:45 AM
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I put the info into a spreadsheet; I hope people can see it without having Numbers (MAC/IOS spreadsheetprogram). If you want to add info or otherwise edit it, let me know and I can make that happen.
I am pretty much done with it as it will be time consuming to get more data out of the reports and I don’t have a need for it. Also keep in mind that this only covers 10~15% of the fatal school bus crashes that happen, as the NTSB doesn’t investigate everything. There’s a lot of info in the reports themselves but due to the variation in how the info is presented it’s difficult to present it in context with numbers alone. For instance, if seat belts would have helped in a particular case, whether window integrity was an issue, if the ejection fatality was caused by the ejection.
https://www.icloud.com/numbers/0iqpoj5NEFtNoQUSMCRVKnVMw#SB_crashes |
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bwest
Administrator
United States
3820 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2020 : 06:39:58 AM
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| WOW! Excellent work! To me, this is a great start to persuade a study. I am working with state legislators and have contact with a US representative candidate who will probably win. That won't be until next year though. |
Bryan |
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40ngone
Senior Member
USA
166 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2020 : 07:28:29 AM
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| Nice job ACL. Thank you! |
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Bus tip-over caught on video
