AUSTIN, Texas — There’s a renewed push for seat belts on Texas school buses, 10 months after a crash killed a 5-year-old boy in Bastrop County on a fatal field trip.
Texas is one of only nine states nationally with a school bus seat belt law. But a newly filed bill looks to expand what is already required. If passed, the measure would make sure every student in the state riding a bus buckles up.
Under Senate Bill 546, districts would have to install lap and shoulder three-point seatbelts on their buses but could also do two-point lap restraints in cases of financial hardship. The law would allow districts to use grants, gifts and donations to pay for the restraints.
State Sen. José Menéndez (D-San Antonio), who authored the bill, says protecting children should be the state’s highest priority.
“Whether it is making school buses safer or the schools themselves safer, giving them the best education, we need to take every step to protect them and allow them to have that right future,” Menéndez said.
A 2017 law requires all newly purchased school buses to be outfitted with three-point seatbelts but does not require districts to retrofit their fleets. That means thousands of Texas children still board buses each day that don’t have restraints.
That was the case in March when a Hays CISD bus was hit by a concrete pumper truck, causing the bus to roll over. In addition to 5-year-old Ulises Rodriguez Montoya, a driver behind the bus – UT grad student Ryan Wallace – also died. The crash also injured most other children on the bus.
The KVUE Defenders and the Austin American-Statesman found in November that of 13 Central Texas school districts, just four – including Austin ISD – had seatbelts installed in their entire bus fleet.
After the Bastrop bus crash, parents expressed outrage that the district deployed a bus without restraints. The district has since expedited plans to put seat belts on 100% of its buses.
As for Menéndez’s bill, it has been sent to the Texas Senate’s Transportation Committee for review.