By APRIL KELLEY
On Wednesday, Jan. 7, area firefighters and ambulance personnel spent the evening training on the best practices for handling passengers on a school bus following an accident.
Riding the school bus is one of the safest ways for school children to travel to school. According to research done at MIT, students are 70 times more likely to get to school safely by bus than car. Recent laws and innovations are improving those numbers every year.
Starting in Oct. of 2019, all new buses purchased by schools in Iowa are required to have lap and shoulder belts, although older buses were not required to be retrofitted.
In Humboldt, five buses are outfitted with seatbelts and three buses for Twin Rivers have them.
Another safety feature on those eight buses is a fire suppression system. The systems, which cost approximately $3,500 per bus put out a fire in less than a minute, saving lives.
