School trips - coaches - lap belt safety

[PJ100]

Hello,

Does anyone have experience with trying to do something about school buses being equipped with lap belts as opposed to 3 point belts.

Lap belts are entirely unsuitable for young kids - they meet legal requirements but can cause horrendous injuries in a crash. Plus, you can't put a booster with a back in one - they need a 3 point belt.

Just wondering if anyone's had experience of complaining about this to their school/LEA and whether anything changed as a result?

Cheers!

Do your DC ever use public transport?

I don't know about where you live, but most buses here don't have seatbelts at all. So if you catch an ordinary service bus with your DC they will not be wearing seatbelts, and certainly won't be sitting on booster seats.

Which is an argument that the school (rightly or wrongly) might well use if you do complain.

Booster seats are only needed to make sure the shoulder strap in a car is at the correct place on the child.
Therefor you do not need one with a lap belt.
I think you need to clarify your ideas before attempting this.

The school buses we use here (for swimming, travelling to/from, we use the pool for the actual lessons!) have 3-point belts with shoulder-adjusty bits.

The result when someone tried to do something around here... the local bus companies didn't have anything available and we got so utterly fed up with taking flack for something that we couldn't actually resolve that we reduced trips to an absolute minimum.

Who won there? Sure as heck wasn't the kids.

If you are worried, contact your LEA directly. The school have no say in the matter and, as emptyshell says, if you try and get them involved it may result in less trips. Get your reasons in place and put them to the LEA.

Thanks for the help. It seems there is movement in Wales and Scotland on getting 3 point belts compulsory for school transport but I'm not sure about England.

It's lap belts themselves I'm concerned about. If you think I'm being paranoid, have a look at the video on the Which? website. They can cause horrendous injuries to children in a crash. Booster seat or not, it's the fact it's a lap belt and not a 3 point that's the problem for me.

I only use buses in built up areas where they go slow. Bit different from coach trip where they are using A roads and doing over 50mph. That's why I'm so concerned.
I know plenty of people will think me paranoid and that's fine!

I did contact the LEA, I was advised that the school are obeying the law but their advice to schools is Best Practice is to use 3 point belts. The Officer I spoke told me that personally she took her kids in her car and didn't let them go on a coach because of the lap belt issue.

Need to do some more research on the Wales/Scotland thing....

"The Officer I spoke told me that personally she took her kids in her car and didn't let them go on a coach because of the lap belt issue."

Death rate of passengers on coaches and buses is about a tenth of that in cars, per mile.

Hi PJ - somewhere on here from ages back, you'd find a thread I began about lap belts and I did get quite slated about being over protective and surely I must go on public transport with the DCs.

well no I don't....or didn't. I had to come to terms with the fact that public buses don't even have lap belts and let my kids go with my mum on the bus shopping. They still haven't been on a train but I'm sure we'll be going to London within the next yeat on a train and I'm freaking out already.

I know how dangerous lap belts are compared to 3 point belts but the schools/LEA will only say what they recommend and as long as the school are legally doing what they ought, there's little more we can do.

You could take the high bit off the booster and then the child would be sitting higher and the belt across their legs rather than tummy but even then, they ride up or are just really crap.

I did write to the DFT bloke but he only told me what I already knew and said you couldn't expect public transport to have seat belts and didn't tell me anything useful about schools either.

"They still haven't been on a train but I'm sure we'll be going to London within the next yeat on a train and I'm freaking out already."

Six times safer per mile than cars. Even allowing for seat belts. A car, with a seat belt, is six times more dangerous than a train without it, for every mile travelled.

Thanks Tokyonambu - that's good to know.
I know it sounds like a neurotic mother but tbh, I am. I'm getting better though. I even stood and watched DS(5) and DH on a big wheel the other week. I felt better knowing he was really enjoying it.