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Comment by tomjen3 | Hacker News Reader

The hole argument is stupid - there are plenty of money in Washington tied up to things that doesn't matter (bridge to nowhere comes to mind) which could be used to buy these damn safety belts. They don't hinder anything really, the price is trivial and 6 kids would not die.

But no, we got to be all "rational" about it (which is code for not do a damn thing).

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When your injury rate is 6 out of 37.9 million [1], there's not much of a policy change you can enact to make something safer. You're thinking "seat belts are more safe, therefore they are better." The rational argument is more along the lines of "Adding a drop of water to the ocean makes it more wet, but not in any way that matters."

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_United_States

I agree. This would be more of a burden than is necessary. Helmets and seat belts are some of the very few laws that exist to protect an adult from themselves. The social aspect of this being that we decrease the cost of healthcare from people flying through the windshield of a car. Nonetheless, all children in America should not be punished by forcing them to wear seat belts for negligible benefit. By doing this, other safety factors would probably be removed, and it would cause distractions for the driver to check if all kids are buckled at all times. "Suzy, put your seatbelt on! Suzy? Suzy, put it on now!" I can see this scenario, and it would likely cause more accidents than it would prevent.

Having spent most of my schooled life riding one of these busses (with safety belts), I can assure you that no children will wear them.

Thats just a question about raising the punishment - which schools seems to have no problem with.

I challenge you to come up with a punishment that would work not just to keep kids in their seats, but also to get them to buckle their belts. At six kids per year I'm against punishing kids for being kids. I imagine there is some other program imaginable that will save more children's lives per dollar than seatbelts in school busses. It isn't like the government has the money to spare.

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