I’m currently on a very crowded bus with many people standing up, even though we are on highways. Why can I stand unsecured while on the bus? Is it a matter of being able to safely get people out in an emergency? Thanks!
edit: I’m in Canada 🇨🇦
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Everyone gave good reason, but sometimes it’s just because a bunch of people didn’t think it was a good reason enough to lobby the government to be a regulation. In politics a good reason is not always why we do things. If I remember seat belt law in the US took a long time to be fully regulated and one state still as no law for adults.
Lot’s of good reasons already listed for why large busses are *a bit safer* during collisions… however, that missed the financial reason.
Bus manufacturers lobbied hard to keep from adding seatbelts when the laws first appears for passenger vehicles.
The transportation lobby continues to spend $ to make sure that don’t have to spend $$$ to upgrade their busses. For example: https://www.sfgate.com/education/article/Why-Seat-Belts-Aren-t-Required-In-School-Buses-3007821.php
I’ve actually been in a bus during an accident in south london. Bus driver rear-ended a saloon. Collision was about 45 mph. There was definitely a sharp jolt and you could’ve lost a tooth if you were unlucky, but no one on the bus was harmed.
When i stepped off the bus and looked at the car, half of it was just gone… Crumpled into itself. The lady was very lucky she wasn’t seriously harmed.
Tldr buses have a lot of mass and inertia. Collision speeds are usually relatively low
I’ve actually been in a bus during an accident in south london. Bus driver rear-ended a saloon. Collision was about 45 mph. There was definitely a sharp jolt and you could’ve lost a tooth if you were unlucky, but no one on the bus was harmed.
When i stepped off the bus and looked at the car, half of it was just gone… Crumpled into itself. The lady was very lucky she wasn’t seriously harmed.
Tldr buses have a lot of mass and inertia. Collision speeds are usually relatively low
Because you’re being driven by a pro, not your shitty parents who scream when the car in front of them spends half a second too long at a greenlight, then tailgate them all the way to the school parking lot where they get sheepish about their poor behavior and blame it all on you for existing. A professional.
oh man, the contrast between this thread and the one the other day taking about double decker plane seats is comedy gold. I urge you to read it back to back.
In that thread it was like:
> that’s outrageous! that would never pass FAA safety standards!
In this thread it’s all
> eh, bus is big enough, it can probably handle itself.
The absolute best however is some person saying
> Planes have to hold up to rigorous safety standards surviving a crash at 16g
(yeah, no plane has ever crashed at 16g… more like 600g) no seatbelts (mandatory on plane) or your little life vests are going to save you from a plane crash.
Yet this thread:
> eh, let the kids fly out the window, better than burning to death i guess.
The true answer to this question, is that really, it doesn’t make any sense; there should be belts on a bus. The safety argument doesn’t hold water compared to a plane. My best guess is that if you have to secure everyone on a bus then you can’t move the necessary amount of people you need to. Thus they relax the rules in the off case something does happen. Betting against the odds I guess.
ELI5: buses are significantly safer than cars due to their size and the addition of padded seats that surround passengers. Some states do require buses to have seatbelts, but the amount of additional safety this provides is minimal.
https://www.trantololaw.com/law-firm-blog/personal-injury/buses-have-seat-belts/
TLDR: this quote explains it pretty succinctly.
“Buckling our seat belts in cars – which weigh much less than 10,000 pounds – reduces fatality risk by 45 percent. For light trucks, seat belts reduce this risk by 60 percent. In both passenger vehicles, chance of moderate to critical injury is also reduced by 50 – 65 percent.
According to the National Safety Council, buses are 40 times safer than the average family car. Passenger vehicles sit low to the ground and cannot absorb the impact of another vehicle as effectively as a school bus.
In the event of a car crash, a child could be killed by the airbag or ejection through the windshield. On a school bus, the seats are cushioned and placed close together – a technique school bus designers call “compartmentalization” – to absorb crash impact.”
Anyone else start singing “wheels on the bus go round and round”?
Probs cause a car is never beating a bus in a collision, it’s the stoppable force meeting the immovable object. Also in an emergency, it’s tough to unbuckle the 60 seated and pull the dead bodies of those standing in the aisle midst wreckage.
Our buses don’t use them in AU, but long distance ones do (we call them coaches), but they’re regularly doing 100(k)+ so the risk is higher.
When I was in school, my bus driver would drive fast as hell down the backroads. We would come up out of our seats every time we went over a hill.
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