So anyways, with all this talk about RF and extended RF because it is so much safer, I got to thinking, shouldn't school bus seats be RF? Up here in Saskatchewan, the only seat with a seat belt on the bus is the drivers, so everyone else is unrestrained. With most impacts being front end, it would be logical to have the seats RF, and I've never been on a bus with enough power to throw you back in your seat, so that isn't a concern. Just a thought, what do you think?
Hmmm...they probably should be, come to think of it. It's a quandry, because lapbelts turned out to be more dangerous than no belts (they cause the kids to jackknife and their heads hit the seat in front, rather than their whole bodies slamming into that seatback and spreading forces evenly to prevent injury), and lap/shoulderbelts are 'too expensive' for the number of lives they would save (maybe one or two a year, and there'd have to be only two kids per seat, rather than three, so you'd need tons more buses per district)...
So, yes, buses are safe without belt, yes, they would be safer with shoulderbelts, and yes, that makes it too expensive and it's gonna take decades till our great grandchildren are in shoulderbelts.
RF would probably save a few injuries a year, but imagine the cries of, 'but now the busdriver can't see my kids as easily!' (and maybe carsickness...they tried to put airplane seats all RF, and people puked to high heaven, so that didn't fly, so to speak).