Seat belts will be included on three new school buses to be purchased by the Decorah School District

Three new school buses will be transporting Decorah area students to and from school and activities this upcoming fall.  The Decorah School Board is planning on purchasing one 84-passanger bus, one 77-passenger bus, and one 65-passenger bus.  

The new buses will all be equipped with mandatory seat belts, as enforced with a change in the law that began in October 2019. The new law does not, however, require schools to retrofit their current bus fleet with seat belts.

Each seat will have three shoulder straps and three clips to buckle the seat belt in at the waist.The versatility of the seats will allow for up to three smaller students or up to two high school students to ride safely.

When asked about how this change in the law will benefit the community, Transportation Director Jim Samuelson said, "Districts which started putting seat belts on the buses before it was mandatory have found that belts help significantly with keeping kids in their seats and also lessening behavioral issues."

According to Samuelson, Decorah School District typically replaces three buses a year, so it'll take about 12 years to replace all 37 buses in the Decorah fleet. The district has one handicapped accessible bus in use that already has seat belts.

While seat belts are mandatory in all new buses, how the seat belts are used is left to individual districts.  Keeping that in mind, a board policy will have to be made to decide how the belts will be used.

In addition to seat belts, the new school buses will also have improved safety requirements such as a second stop arm with a stop sign at the rear of the bus, hand rails, exterior boarding lights, and fire-resistant crash barriers between the front bus seat and the bus driver.