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History
- Referred to transportation
- Referred to transportation
Full text
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Title of bill
An act to amend the vehicle and traffic law, in relation to requiring all school buses in operation to be equipped with safety belts and requiring use of safety belts on school buses
Purpose/summary of provisions
To require all pre-1987 manufactured school buses to be retrofitted with safety belts, and to require such belts be used by all students being transported. Amends subdivision 5 of section 383 of the vehicle and traffic law, and subdivisions 1, 4, and 11 of section 1229-c of the vehicle and traffic law to require that all school buses be equipped with seat belts and those belts will be required to be used.
Justification
New York State's current vehicle and traffic law requires all buses manufactured after July 1, 1987 to be equipped with seat belts. However, all buses in use that were manufactured before that date have no such requirement. Additionally, the law does not mandate use of the seat belts that do exist. Studies conducted by the Federal Government and by traffic safety experts have clearly shown that seat belt usage in school buses prevents deaths and injuries. Seat belts are necessary to prevent children from flying forward and sustaining the most serious types of injuries. The latest findings published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration go a step further by demonstrating that seat belt usage decreases the average inpatient cost for an individual in an accident. For over thirty years, New York State has required that school bus drivers have and wear seat belts. The time has come to protect the children as well, and require them to wear safety belts as well.
Fiscal implications
Minimal. School district would be required to retrofit all pre-1987 school buses with safety belts. However, since the average prudent utility of a school bus is 10-12 years, by the effective date of this bill only 25% or fewer of the school bus fleet will still need to be attended to.
Effective date
This act shall take effect the first of September next succeeding the date on which it shall have become a law.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.