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now to tonight's Fox 7 Focus this week
marks two months since a concrete truck
plowed into a haze CISD school bus in
Bastrop County one student on that bus
died along with the driver of another
car the bus involved did not have seat
belts joining us to talk about this is
Trey Gober an attorney representing one
of the kids who was injured in that
crash Trey thanks for being
here absolutely thank you for having me
so first of all I want to ask you how
was your client doing I understand this
is a 5-year-old child how how how how is
that person doing and how are these
families doing you know two months after
this
happened it's a traumatic event um our
our client is very fortunate in that
their physical
injuries um are relatively less severe
than some of the other uh children some
of the other people involved uh
obviously the
long-term mental anguish mental injuries
of having um been involved in this crash
will will be there
forever and as we've been hearing you
know as the investigation comes out we
know this bus did not have seat belts
investigators not saying specifically
whether or not that would have made a
difference but what is your reaction to
that you know how important are seat
belts on a school bus in your
view well seat belts in general school
bus or not we've known for a very long
time decades uh the value of seat belts
obviously this crash was a tragic event
and we're working to hold accountable
everybody that we can hold accountable
the conversation about seat bels doesn't
mean that we're necessarily faulting
anyone for not having seat belts at this
time that's still an ongoing pending
investigation and so it's not here to
play the blame game but really just how
can we learn from from a tragedy like
this to make sure that something similar
doesn't happen and how important is this
issue to to your clients and to some of
these families you know who've been
through this tragedy the positive that
we see is the fact that we're having
this conversation right now about the
importance of seat belts which school
districts have seat bels on all their
buses which don't we're seeing an
escalation even with the this particular
School District the Hayes uh ISB
we're seeing escalation to move to All
Buses having seat belts and so that's
the Silver Lining to this trench yeah
and I I think we're having a
conversation about the you know what is
the law I think a lot of us didn't know
what the law was before so talk talk to
us about that you know where does the
law stand right now I understand older
buses are essentially grandfathered in
they don't have to have seat belts while
newer ones do is that
correct yeah absolutely uh so it's any
bus um made after 2017 purchased after
2017 has to have a seat belt however
there's currently an out plots for
school districts to say that it's it's
not cost feasible the reality is I've
read uh several reports the cost to add
seat belts to the school bus is about
$10,000 um budgets are large enough that
this should not be a line item safety
children and these schools should not be
a line item if we were to write the rule
I think the rule is very simple every
school bus should have seat bels and
those she seat belts should have three
point harnesses how quickly do you think
this change Could Happen uh here in
Texas what do you think needs to happen
and are you hearing any conversation
among lawmakers at the capital here you
know that could we see this move forward
in in the near
term we could have absolutely have a
funded mandate from from our Texas
lawmakers our governor as far as whether
that's you know 3 months 6 months there
there's some Logistics will work out
there but it can certainly be
accomplished and you know sooner it's
better than all right attorney Trey
goober Trey thank you so much for being
here and speaking with us we appreciate
it thanks for having me thanks