Last week, NAPT and the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) released statements responding to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) new proposal aimed at school bus safety.

"We are ... extremely disappointed with the agency's NPRM [Notice of Proposed Rulemaking]," NAPT officials said. "Instead of the clarity and direction states, parents and the school bus industry sought and expected, the NPRM adds equivocation and uncertainty to the discussion."

NHTSA's NPRM would require all new school buses to be equipped with 24-inch seat backs beginning one year after the rule goes into effect. It would also require all new small buses to be equipped with three-point seat belts within three years of the rule taking effect, and the federal government would allow school districts to use federal highway safety funds to cover the additional cost of equipping buses with the belts.

GHSA officials said they approve of the proposal to make school buses safer by requiring higher seat backs and setting new seat belt standards, but they expressed concern over allowing school districts to use federal highway safety money to fund seat belt.

“While this use of grant funds is not new, the additional focus on the issue may cause states to be pressured to spend federal highway safety money for this purpose to the detriment of many competing highway safety needs,” the GHSA said. “GHSA advocates spending highway safety money on the areas that will have the greatest impact on saving lives.”

They added that these areas include programs directed toward drunk driving, occupant protection for the general population and speeding.

Meanwhile, the NAPT claimed that the NPRM contains statements that are illogical, confusing and "do not serve the goal of enhancing the safety of children riding on school buses." Officials also said that the proposed rule alleges that the association opposes lap-shoulder belts in school buses.

"This is not and never has been NAPT's position," said the statement. "We are on record repeatedly and publicly in strong support of compartmentalization, but that does not mean we are opposed to any safety measures, including lap-shoulder belts, that can be shown through sound science to improve the safety of children riding in school buses, regardless of cost."

NAPT officials went on to say that several statements in the new rule contradict ones NHTSA made in its 2002 Report to Congress. The NAPT feels that this, and the fact that that there is no indication that NHTSA has done additional testing since then, "makes it seem as if they are they simply saying what they think people want to hear."

The NAPT will submit comments to the docket that outline deficiencies it sees in the proposal. Moreover, the GHSA urged U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters to advocate new funding for school bus safety equipment with Congress, and said it will also be submitting formal comments regarding the proposed regulations.