More school districts nationwide are requiring seat belts on school buses, and the U.S. Department of Transportation is expected this fall to recommend them as a voluntary standard feature on buses.

But Utah is unlikely to join states such as California and Texas in making them mandatory, a Utah official says.

Safety belts in buses may reduce injuries in side collision or rollover accidents, says Murrell Martin, a Utah State Office of Education pupil transportation specialist, but equipping more than 2,000 buses statewide with seat belts would be prohibitively expensive.

Martin emphasizes that accidents involving school buses are relatively rare and even without belts, school buses are among the safest forms of transportation.

"Students are eight times safer in the bus than they are in their parents' vehicles with seat belts," Martin says.

Current federal standards do not require seat belts, reflecting the belief that school buses provide protection through "compartmentalization," using high, cushioned seats designed to keep students confined to the narrow space between seats if a crash occurs.

At a July forum, U.S. Transportation Department Secretary Mary Peters asked attendees to look at ways to improve students' safety on large buses.

"We owe it to our children to look at this issue with fresh eyes," Peters said in a statement. "With that in mind, it's time to look at seat belts on buses."

The National Coalition for School Bus Safety would like to see seat belts mandated on buses. It argues compartmentalization doesn't always protect schoolchildren.

"The laws of physics are not suspended simply because we can paint a vehicle yellow and call it a school bus . . . so much for compartmentalization. It's just padding on the seats," said Alan Ross, the coalition's president.

He adds cost should not be an issue when it comes to children's safety.

Research from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration shows an average of 21 deaths involving school-age children and buses occur nationwide each year. The majority of deaths are pedestrian accidents occurring outside buses.

The school bus occupant fatality rate is 0.2 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, compared with rates for passenger cars and trucks of 1.44 per 100 million, according to NHTSA statistics.

Although adding three-point seat belts may increase safety, their addition may mean fewer students could ride on each bus, potentially putting more children at risk because they would have to rely on less safe forms of transportation to get to and from school, Martin says.

The state Legislature would have to adopt legislation requiring seat belts on buses, plus allocate the necessary funding.

Parents' opinions are mixed on the issue.

Sue Johnston, a mother of three schoolchildren, said she has always thought it strange that buses don't have seat belts. "We have to have them in cars, why not on the bus?"

Karyn Gustafson and her husband, Troy, however, are uncertain whether the expense would be worth it. The two said children have been riding buses safely for many years, and money might be better spent in other areas of education.

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* ROXANA ORELLANA can be reached at rorellana@sltrib.com or 801-257-8693.