After dangerous crashes, why doesn’t Oklahoma require seat belts on buses?

Oklahoma lawmakers have tried at least three times since 2003 to require seat belts on school buses.

But none of the attempts were ever considered in the state Legislature even as bus crashes drew statewide and sometimes national attention.

The debate regarding seat belts on school buses reignited in Oklahoma after a bus carrying Minco’s softball team rolled over Sept. 8, on State Highway 152 in Caddo County, ejecting four children and one adult. The only seat belt equipped on the bus was on the driver’s seat.

In the wake of other dangerous crashes, two neighboring states were able to accomplish what Oklahoma hasn’t: They enacted seat belt laws.

More: ‘A miracle’: How the Minco school bus crash forged a bond like nothing on a softball field could

Months before the Minco bus crash, a Republican state lawmaker from Copan introduced legislation that would have required new school buses that could carry 10 or more passengers to be equipped with seat belts or harnesses. Rep. Judd Strom said he wrote House Bill 1244 at the request of a handful of school administrators in his district.

That bill was never considered by a committee, the first step in the legislative process, meaning it could not advance to the House floor.

Strom told The Oklahoman he didn’t expect the bill to make it through the House because of its potentially high price tag and a misconception that the law would require schools to retrofit their buses.

Similar bills also have failed to be considered in the state Legislature, including a 2016 bill by former Rep. Cory Williams, D-Stillwater, and a 2003 bill from former Rep. Kevin Calvey, R-Oklahoma City. Neither lawmaker responded to The Oklahoman’s requests for comment.

More: Oklahoma can’t wait for kids to be killed. We need school bus seat belts now | Editorial

Without committee hearings, there has not been a public forum in the state Legislature to debate the merits of a seat belt law. But Strom said he believes his bill has opened a wider conversation.

“That conversation goes both sides on cost versus benefits, and the safety being the main benefit,” Strom said.

Minco Superintendent Kevin Sims knows he might be part of a resurfaced debate regarding seat belts on buses. He told The Oklahoman there are a lot of questions about how buses might be equipped with seat belts, adding that he’d do anything to keep Minco kids safe.

The school bus that crashed near Minco was carrying 18 people — mostly students and coaches — when the collision occurred just before 8 p.m. on Sept. 8. The bus hit a deer, then left the roadway and rolled.

All passengers were injured, including five who were thrown from the bus.

“I think the seat belt question is something that’s going to be addressed,” Sims said a week after the crash. “I’m pretty sure it will be addressed, and obviously, they’re going to use the Minco crash as a focal point for the need.”

How many school buses are involved in crashes in Oklahoma?

The Minco accident is one of 130 crashes in the state this year involving a school bus, according to data from the Oklahoma Highway Safety Office. Three of those crashes were fatal, though Amy Graham, a data analyst for the office, said numbers past 2021 are still preliminary due to changes in the agency’s data system.

In 2024, there were 218 crashes involving a school bus compared to 252 in 2023, which included one fatal crash, 176 in 2022, 178 in 2021 and 127 in 2020.

The Minco crash is also the third high-profile school bus crash in Oklahoma involving a softball team in recent years. In 2019, three people died, including one student, after a school bus carring a Konawa Public Schools junior high softball team collided with an SUV in Seminole County. In 2014 near Davis, an 18-wheel tractor-trailer crashed into a bus carrying 15 softball players from North Central Texas College, killing four players.

Still, the state Legislature has not yet considered a bill that would require seat belts on school buses.

Seat belt laws in other states

In Arkansas, one Democratic lawmaker found success in passing a law that requires seat belts on school buses when funding is available. In a state like Oklahoma with a Republican-controlled Legislature, Arkansas Rep. Mark McElroy leaned into a popular GOP platform to get his legislation across the finish line — local control.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed McElroy’s bill into law in 2017. The law requires school districts to act if a petition requesting school buses to be equipped with seat belts is signed by at least 10% of the district’s electors.

If petitioned, a school district must propose an additional property tax to cover the cost of seat belts on new buses, calculate the needed levy amount and put the proposal on the ballot at the next annual school election.

McElroy said the bill came from two students who were involved in a school bus crash. The lawmaker said the kids asked him why the bus driver had a seat belt, and they didn’t.

He invited the students to testify about the bill during a committee hearing. That’s when he found out “politicians don’t like other politicians, but they don’t yell at children,” McElroy said.

Now, Arkansas is one of nine states with laws requiring the installation of seat belts on school buses. Texas also has a seat belt law.

Oklahoma business leader Harold Hamm urged school districts to take action without mandates from government. In an opinion column in The Oklahoman, he said every new school bus should come equipped with lap-shoulder seat belts. Hamm also proposed a phased approach to retrofitting school buses.

More: Harold Hamm: The time has come for requiring seat belts in all our school buses | Opinion

“Oklahomans have never waited for Washington to tell us how to do the right thing,” Hamm said. “We act. We lead. Just as we’ve led in energy, innovation, and opportunity, we can lead in protecting our children every single day — on the way to school, and on the way to the big game.”

Strom’s bill to require seat belts on new buses is still eligible to be heard when the legislature meets in 2026.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Why doesn’t Oklahoma require seat belts on school buses?