Illinois lawmakers are advancing legislation that would require all newly purchased school buses in the state to be equipped with lap/shoulder seatbelts. Now entering its third reading in the Senate, the bill marks the state’s latest and most promising step toward aligning with national safety recommendations for student transportation.
If enacted, Illinois would become the seventh state to mandate three-point restraints on school buses, joining Arkansas, California, Iowa, Nevada, New Jersey, and Texas.
SB191 is sponsored by Sen. Julie A. Morrison with Sen. Mike Simmons (D–Chicago) as co-sponsor. Rep. Bob Morgan has pre-filed companion legislation in the Illinois House.
A second amendment under discussion would change the effective date of the mandate to Jan. 1, 2031, from the original date of Jan. 1, 2028. According to legislation advocates, this adjustment is being considered to address concerns from previous opponents and help move the legislation forward.
It also does not require school districts, private schools, or school bus contractors to require student passenger seatbelt usage and only applies to owned vehicles.
SB191 with the amendment was referred Wednesday to the Senate Transportation Committee.
The effort to draft and promote the bill has been spearheaded in part by Kimberly Loughlin, an Illinois-based curriculum designer and certified child passenger safety technician (CPST) with the additional eight-hour school bus endorsement. She collaborated with the National Safety Council on revising its 2022 revision of Child Passenger Safety on School Buses course for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The seminar taught at the STN EXPO East, STN EXPO West and TSD Conference each year is widely taught as an advanced supplement to the national 32-hour CPST certification course.
Loughlin became involved in legislative advocacy after a series of personal incidents her family encountered while she was rewriting the eight-hour course. Her son was involved in two separate school bus crashes just a month apart while attending summer camp field trips offered through their local park district. While none of the children were seriously injured, her son was thrown forward and struck his head. The buses lacked seatbelts.
Only a few months later, Loughlin and her son were involved in a separate car crash, suffering concussions and lingering injuries. The experiences reshaped her perspective on injury reporting and the long-term effects of non-fatal trauma, especially for children.
Although her local school district contracts with transportation providers that include two-point lap belts, Loughlin observed that children often didn’t wear them, leading to behavior issues and unsafe conditions. When she encouraged the district to implement safer lap-and-shoulder belts and a seatbelt usage policy, she was told ity would not act unless legally required. That led her to connect with Sen. Morrison, who made the effort to advance state-level legislation.
In developing the bill, Loughlin worked with Denise Donaldson, editor and publisher of Safe Ride News, and Charlie Vits, formerly with IMMI/Safeguard, to draft policy language modeled on similar laws in other states. Donaldson is a CPST instructor for the NHTSA course. Dr. Kristin Poland, Deputy Director at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), also collaborated with Loughlin in support of the bill.
The team of advocates credit recent industry developments, such as Blue Bird Corporation’s announcement that lap-and-shoulder belts would be standard on all new buses starting last fall, with shifting the conversation around cost. With one of the major manufacturers standardizing the passenger restraint systems, the economic argument against seatbelt mandates has lost momentum, they claim.
In addition to the NHTSA eight-hour seminar, Donaldson is scheduled to present at this year’s STN EXPO West Conference in Reno, Nevada, on the top 10 safety concerns in school transportation—including the ongoing lack of lap/shoulder seatbelt use.
While school bus compartmentalization can reduce injuries in frontal crashes, it is insufficient in side-impact or rollover events. Decades of data including that from the National Transportation Safety Board on high-profile school bus crashes support the efficacy of lap-and-shoulder belts, which also contribute to improved behavior, reduced driver distraction and more effective emergency evacuations.
“Something so simple as a seatbelt can make all the difference in the world,” Loughlin said. “It shouldn’t take a catastrophic event to realize the importance of protecting kids in this very basic way.”
Related: Updated: NAPT Issues New Position on School Bus Seatbelts
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