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Comment by joenathanone | Hacker News Reader

Also kinda the same reason why buses don't need seatbelts.

My understanding was that buses don't have seatbelts for two reasons:

* Per capita and per mile, buses are far safer than personal automobiles.

* When buses do get in accidents, seatbelts are more of a hazard than a safety feature (e.g. by preventing impaired riders from fleeing the vehicle on their own).

The latter doesn't apply to personal vehicles to the same degree, since they're preventing fatalities in different types of crashes for the latter (e.g. being flung out of the front window).

To the parent's point. Buses are safer for the occupants because they are heavier. But they are more dangerous to the smaller vehicles occupants.

I suppose they don't tend to go into high speed highways.

There are also fewer buses needed to carry the same number of people, and they are operated by professional (and hopefully less distracted!) drivers.

I'm not sure a good data source, but I'd expect that the serious injury rate per person-mile of buses is much lower than that of private cars.

I don't have serious injury, but deaths per 100m passenger miles is 1/10th to 1/20th the rate for private passenger vehicles.

Rail is 1/2 the bus fatality rate.

<https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics...>

It is funny how our bubbles shape our views. I've never been on a bus that didn't have highway speeds as part of its regular route.

Most vehicle accidents are between vehicles. Most vehicles weigh far less than busses. And most busses spend most time travelling at lower speeds on surface streets (though long-distance road coaches are exceptions).

I've been in a bus-automobile accident, at low speed (< 25 kph). The experience from within the bus was an abrupt stop, I've experienced similar from normal braking.

The auto involved suffered major rear-end damage. The bus's front bumper was somewhat scuffed.

High-speed rollover accidents, collisions with fixed structures adjacent to a high-speed roadway, or plunging from a bridge or cliff might benefit from additional restraints. Those circumstances are seldom encountered.

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