Interesting Story on Bus Seat Belts

[BMTSoulja1]

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[tvc184]

The article tries to imply (I think) that the law requires students to wear a seatbelt in a bus. It does not. What it requires is the school board to institute a policy telling students to be a seatbelt go. It has no penalty listed. 

According to the law posted in the article,  the school board is supposed to institute a policy that says students are supposed to wear seatbelts but it requires no punishment.  The law says they “may” Implement a disciplinary policy to enforce that. In legal terms, “may” means optional, “shall” means mandatory. What that means to me is that this law requires the district  to have a policy to tell the kids to wear a seatbelt but they did not have to be any punishment against a student or driver unless the district decides to put that in the policy.

Then you have a legislator, the Texas Speaker and the man who tragically lost his daughter and helped push for the law, are both angered because the law is not being followed. Unless they can find some different wording in the law, the part in the article only requires some words on a piece of paper (policy). It does not mention law enforcement action and it does not mention any mandatory punishment from the school.

If I’m reading it right, it also makes it appear is that with the DPS trooper that they spoke with made a mistake. According to the article the trooper said that law enforcement can’t enforce the seatbelt requirement.’ The article  then says, “But after further review we learned……”..

That sounds to me like they’re implying that’s a trooper is wrong. It says a trooper stated that law-enforcement cannot enforce it and in the next sentence says “but after further review”. The article then posts the law that puts all enforcement action squarely on the school board and it says they “may” create disciplinary policy.

It is an interesting topic and it should be reported on. It looks like several people in the article really don’t know what the law is or what their policy is  on both sides of the issue. It again makes me question reporting when it seems to try to make an issue where there is none. I don’t know if PAISD has a written policy. Maybe they do and the Director of transportation was just not familiar with that part. If it requires no disciplinary action, they have nothing to understand anyway except that they should inform the students to be in seatbelts. Sometimes I think reporters go into a story with the intent to try to make someone look bad for sensational news instead of keeping an open mind. Maybe a reporter is not going to it like that but aren’t really looking into what they wrote or what they are told.

The important parts that I gathered from this article are, at least one person in PAISD is not familiar as to whether the district has a policy on seatbelts and the law requires a policy but requires nothing else including any discipline.

Does anyone see anything differently?

[BMTSoulja1]

I will say this.  Most of the PAISD and BISD busses are up To date, meaning those buses should have seat belts.  My question is are these bus drivers really telling these kids to buckle up.  Most of them are just there for a check and could give a rat’s you know what.  That’s the first thing.  Second is we need to know the particular policies of each said district in whether or not they REQUIRE you to buckle up in busses.  A few years ago, I volunteered for BU band and all the trips we went on, no one required students or parents to buckle up.

Third, since we know it’s a law for kids to buckle up, someone needs to contact these superintendents and find out if they are really pushing student safety on busses, not just the horse and pony show for the news reporters.  

[tvc184]

1 hour ago, BMTSoulja1 said:

 

Third, since we know it’s a law for kids to buckle up, someone needs to contact these superintendents and find out if they are really pushing student safety on busses, not just the horse and pony show for the news reporters.  

According to the article it’s not really a law. The only law requires a policy from the district and requires no punishment.

The way the law is written it sounds more like an encouragement but not a requirement. Maybe there are more laws that apply but they certainly were not in that article.

[bullets13]

5 hours ago, BMTSoulja1 said:

I will say this.  Most of the PAISD and BISD busses are up To date, meaning those buses should have seat belts.  My question is are these bus drivers really telling these kids to buckle up.  Most of them are just there for a check and could give a rat’s you know what.  That’s the first thing.  Second is we need to know the particular policies of each said district in whether or not they REQUIRE you to buckle up in busses.  A few years ago, I volunteered for BU band and all the trips we went on, no one required students or parents to buckle up.

Third, since we know it’s a law for kids to buckle up, someone needs to contact these superintendents and find out if they are really pushing student safety on busses, not just the horse and pony show for the news reporters.  

When I worked at Bingman in BISD every child wore a seatbelt every time they were on the bus.  Refusal to do so ended with them losing bus privileges.  These were very young students, though.