AUSTIN, Texas — Lawmakers in the Texas Senate are looking to advance a bill that would require school buses to have seat belts on their entire fleet, including older buses.
Senate Bill 546 was authored by Texas Sen. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio. The bill would expand on a 2017 law that requires 3-point seat belts on buses made after 2018.
A “3-Point Seat Belt” is a safety harness built in a “Y” shape. The belt has three mounting points: a lap belt and and a single strap that runs diagonally across the chest and shoulder, forming a “Y” shape.
SB 546 would give school districts four years to get into compliance. It is unclear how much adding seat belts to all of the school buses in the state would cost.
This latest bill comes a year after the 2024 deadly school bus crash in Bastrop, Texas.
On March 22, 2024, Jerry Hernandez was driving a cement truck that was seen on video crossing the double yellow line on Highway 21, hitting a Hays Consolidated Independent School District bus carrying 44 children and 11 adults.
A 5-year-old who was on the bus died as a result of the crash and more than 50 others were injured. Another victim, 33-year-old Ryan Wallace, was also killed after his SVU was hit by the cement truck.
Hernandez was later indicted on two counts of manslaughter and two counts of criminally negligent homicide.
The school bus carrying the students did not have seat belts.
According to a Hays CISD spokesperson, the 5-year-old’s seating position and the truck’s impact point made it difficult to assess if seatbelts would have been life-saving.
However, the spokesperson stated the district believes that seatbelts would have likely helped other injured students in the bus rollover.
