Tuesday, March 28, at 7:15 am a Cortland County school bus, slipped off road into a ditch on Route 215 between Bennie Rd. and Starr Rd, on its way to school. The bus holding 22 Jr. and Sr. High students at the time.
Students were transported to the junior-senior high school and evaluated by the school nurse, no injuries were reported.
Importance of Seatbelts
Seatbelts; vehicle safety devices designed to secure the driver or a passenger of a vehicle against harmful movement that may result during a collision or a sudden stop.
A staple in vehicular safety, reducing the risk of death by 45% and serious injuries by 50%. 371,368 traffic collisions occurred throughout the state of New York, according to the Traffic Safety Statistical Repository maintained by the New York Department of Motor Vehicles
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) stated the following statistics of accident reports in 2020, “Of the 23,824 passenger vehicle occupants killed in 2020, 51% were not wearing seat belts — a 4% increase from 2019. Seat belts saved an estimated 14,955 lives and could have saved an additional 2,549 people if they had been wearing seat belts, in 2017 alone”.
Buckling up helps keep you safe and secure inside your vehicle, whereas not buckling up can result in being totally ejected from the vehicle in a crash, which is almost always deadly.
nhtsa.gov
The NHTSA also lays out benefits of wearing a seatbelt:
- If you buckle up in the front seat of a passenger car, you can reduce your risk of:
- Fatal injury by 45% (Kahane, 2015)
- Moderate to critical injury by 50%
- If you buckle up in a light truck, you can reduce your risk of:
- Fatal injury by 60% (Kahane, 2015)
- Moderate to critical injury by 65% (NHTSA, 1984)
Seatbelt Laws
In November 2020, New York State required all passengers in a vehicle to have a seatbelt on, regardless of where they are sitting.
In New York state, a driver can be fined $25 to $100 and receive three penalty points on their license for each violation. However, seatbelt use is not required in emergency vehicles, 1964 and older vehicles, or by bus passengers, not including school buses. School seatbelt policy is determined by the district.
Wearing a seat belt keeps you safe inside a vehicle and has been proven to save lives. Even in the back seat, a seat belt keeps you safer and increases your chance of surviving a crash.
nhtsa.org