Toddlers using public bus transport

So I've been reading this section trying to get ready for our upcoming flight, and have been learning a lot about school bus safety along the way

It made me think, how safe are toddlers using public transport ie/a city bus? (just sitting in their stroller) I do it occasionally but have always felt very uneasy about it. Have always been told not to worry about it though because of the sheer size of the bus, and that they're rarely in accidents etc

So, do they differ from school buses?

And similar to school buses, what about shuttle buses while away on vacation? We have an upcoming trip to Disney, and a few threads in here have mentioned you don't need a car seat if using the shuttle there...I'm assuming this is considered safe?

Thanks!

Hi,

Edit: this is a long post, wanted to put some info on how school buses versus city buses are designed to give you the information to make a choice for your situation.


City buses and school buses do differ. School buses are built with the idea that protection to the occupants is provided through compartmentalization; occupants aren't restrained per se but are kept from serious injury by padding the surfaces around them. The seats are high backed, padded and spaced close together (and there's a padded back in front of the front row of seats). They are energy absorbing, and meant to give a bit when the occupant behind strikes the seatback.

Now compartmentalization works best for kids 40lbs and over; kids below 40 lbs are recommended to be in child seats.

The structure of a school bus is also built to very high standards to ensure it maintains its integrity in a collision to protect occupants. Its also designed to prevent ejection from the vehicle; this is why school bus windows are small openings.

If you want to clarify what that means in real life consider pictures of intercity buses after serious collisions, and then pictures of school buses; after nearly all collisions, the school bus still looks like a school bus but intercity buses (and other passenger vehicles!) often look like a large pile of crumpled aluminum foil.

And finally at least up here I live/grew up school buses use diesel instead of gasoline because diesel is far less flammable in case of a collision.

City buses, as well as intercity buses, aren't built to the same standards as school buses. The seats are often hard metal or plastic, not designed for compartmetalization, and the windows are large, not designed to prevent ejection.

Now I speak from experience growing up as a child in a large city and taking city buses all the time with mom during the day when dad took the car at work:

Never once was I ever on a bus or streetcar that was involved in any kind of collision, not even a bump. You hear very rarely of accidents involving public transit. And in the case of public transit, I do believe that if they happened you would hear about it in the news. My growing up years, imagine how many kids' parents cars were involved in collisions?

And the only collisions I've heard of involving injuries to the passengers on a city bus was a couple of years ago, and the reports were the driver was weaving all over the road, and was suspected to be smoking marijuana and drinking beforehand.

So I wounldn't worry about being on a city bus at all. Intercity buses concern me more. They seem to have more serious collisions, probably at least partially due to higher speeds. If the vacation shuttles operate at higher speeds, more like intercity than local city buses, that would concern me. Also, lately some companies have been equipping intercity buses with lap/shoulder belts for passengers. If the shuttle buses have been equipped with lap/shoulder belts, in my opinion the occupants should be restrained and I'd want my child to be in a carseat. I've never heard of a city bus having seatbelts and can't imagine that being done.

I use the San Fransisco Muni bus system all the time. They crash so often that it's a running joke. It's very very rare for people ON the buses to be seriously injured, and almost unheard of for there to be a fatality to a rider. (Pedestrians, bikers, passengers in small cars however don't stand much of a chance against the sheer mass of a bus). When you do hear of serious injuries or fatalities to riders (I think about 5 a year if you average it out since the 90s) it's because the bus crashed with a train or a building or a bigger bus.

I just wanted to add that public transportation is a very safe form of travel even though occupants are un-restrained. I take my daughters on the bus and/or train almost every day of the year. The vehicles are large, highly visible, and crashworthy, and operated by professional drivers, typically at lower speeds.

It's hard to directly compare injury rates due to differences in reporting standards and limitations in the "denominator" exposure data (mileage/trips) but overall, public transport in the US has a fatality rate of roughly 0.3 per 100 million passenger-miles of travel, versus about 0.7 for automobile travel. (The transit rates would be even lower if suicides were excluded.)

It's even harder to get data on long-distance motorcoaches but they also appear to be quite safe, statistically, despite some of the very high-profile crashes that have occurred in the past few years. Some lines do offer seatbelts and new motorcoaches will be required to have seatbelts in a few years.

Amtrak is also *very* safe despite the lack of seatbelts.

When traveling with kids, my personal rule on shuttle buses that don't have seatbelts is that we're OK with something that is clearly a full-size bus, but we won't use something that is essentially a light-duty vehicle that has been modified to add more seats.

Mommy! said:

Hi,


So I wounldn't worry about being on a city bus at all. Intercity buses concern me more. They seem to have more serious collisions, probably at least partially due to higher speeds. If the vacation shuttles operate at higher speeds, more like intercity than local city buses, that would concern me. Also, lately some companies have been equipping intercity buses with lap/shoulder belts for passengers. If the shuttle buses have been equipped with lap/shoulder belts, in my opinion the occupants should be restrained and I'd want my child to be in a carseat. I've never heard of a city bus having seatbelts and can't imagine that being done.

Click to expand...

What's the difference between a city bus and an intercity bus??

TwinMomma said:

What's the difference between a city bus and an intercity bus??

Click to expand...

Edit: I thought you meant re. travelling speed etc, but just in case, by city buses I mean municipal transit, stopping at major street corners, and by intercity a bus from New York to Boston for example.



Personally to me it would be that city buses typically operate at far lower speeds. Plus intercity buses are starting to be equipped with lap/shoulder belts, which I can't see ever happening with city buses. Now that's just my personal feeling and not a scientific opinion though. The vast majority of the fatal/critical bus accidents I've heard about have been intercity not city.

Now regarding intercity buses starting to have belts, to me that says that there probably are good scientific reasons for feeling that intercity bus passengers would benefit from seatbelts, and if the adult passengers have seatbelts I'd want my child to have a carseat.

Now seatbelts or not intercity buses, as well as city buses, are both safer statistically then passenger cars.

For purposes of this discussion, the Disney Magic Express and Disney buses that take you from hotels to parks would both be considered inter-city buses. They travel on highways, higher speeds. On ME you have some form of compartment alizarin due to the high cushioned seat backs, but not on the park/hotel shuttles. I was ok with the ME, and not at all comfy with the latter.