New School Bus Rules Protect Manufacturers
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NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, issued new rules this week that will improve the nation’s 474,000 school buses. Seat and shoulder belts will be required on small school buses. The requirement will also change seat backs making them four inches higher in all new buses.
Seats must also come equipped with safety latches that can be flipped up or removed without resorting to special tools. That’s the good news.
But something is missing. NHTSA will not require seat belts in the kind of large school buses that most children ride in, despite research that shows it would prevent about 1,900 injuries a year. Instead NHTSA set standards for the seat belts, should states decide to order them.
Whenever the federal government sets standards these days, unfortunately we know what's coming. It's called federal pre-emption and is increasingly being used to shield manufacturers from any product liability IF they follow the federal standards.
Public Citizen, the consumer group, doesn’t like the omission of seat belts from large buses.
President, Joan Claybrook, who was the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from 1977-81, says Public Citizen also doesn't like NHTSAs plans to immunize manufacturers from personal injury liability.
It's all there in the fine print on page 123 of the rule:
“State requirements imposed on motor vehicle manufacturers including sanctions imposed by State tort law, can stand as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of a NHTSA safety standard,” the rule says.
In other words, federal law trumps a state product liability lawsuit.
So in the final days of the Bush administration we are seeing a spike in pre-emption language and these new school bus rules are included. Once again, if a manufacturer follows the federal standard, they are shielded from lawsuits for injuries related to that product.
Lawsuits can force manufacturers to provide the toughest standards, out of fear, if for no other reason.
The language in the ruling is good news for the manufacturers, but very bad news for our school children.