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November 30, 2006
HUNTSVILLE SCHOOL BUS CRASH COINCIDES WITH NEW STUDY
The crash of a school bus in Huntsville, Alabama, in which students were ejected and four teenagers were killed, followed by only weeks the publication of a new study that increased estimates of injuries sustained in school bus-related accidents. The Alabama crash, in which the bus toppled from an overpass after being hit by a car suspected of having a faulty steering mechanism, has renewed debate over whether school busses should be equipped with restraint systems for students.
The new, widely-reported study was published in Pediatrics. Its data show school-bus-related accidents “send 17,000 U.S. children to emergency rooms each year, more than double the number in previous estimates that included only crashes.
"The findings from this study indicate that motor vehicle crashes are the leading mechanism of nonfatal school bus-related injury for children in the U.S.," said CIRP Director Gary Smith, MD, DrPH, one of the study's authors and a faculty member of The Ohio State University College of Medicine. "In addition, this study identified several other important mechanisms of school bus-related injury. Further research is needed to determine the relative contributions of structural and operational components of the school bus, supervision, and rider behavior to the occurrence of these injuries and the effectiveness of occupant restraint systems and other strategies to prevent these types of injuries," Smith added.
Posted by MVHAP at November 30, 2006 07:27 PM