TEXAS, USA — Hays CISD said the school bus involved in a crash in Bastrop County that killed a 5-year-old boy and injured dozens of other students and adults was not equipped with seatbelts.
According to Texas law, it wasn't required to be.
Texas passed a law requiring seatbelts on buses back in 2017. Senate Bill 693 passed during the 85th legislative session and stated that buses are required to be equipped with 3-point seatbelts for every passenger.
But the law only applies to buses purchased by a school district after 2017. Additionally, districts can still buy buses without seatbelts if they don't have the money in their budget for buses that have them, though the law does require a district's school board to approve buying a bus without seatbelts in a public meeting.
According to Hays CISD, the bus involved in Friday's crash was a 2011 model and therefore exempt from the law.
Hays CISD said it began buying buses equipped with seatbelts in 2017, the same year the law was passed. But of the 200 school buses in the district's fleet, about 40 are older than 2017. That's about 20% of the fleet.
Hays CISD said its Facilities and Bond Oversight Committee will discuss speeding up the timeline of bus replacement so that all the district's buses will be equipped with seatbelts as soon as possible. That committee's next meeting is scheduled for April 17.
The district also said the Texas Department of Public Safety is conducting a reconstruction investigation to provide more information about whether a seatbelt would have made a difference for the student who died in the crash. At this time, Hays CISD said it doesn't know that answer.