Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to express my concerns about the safety issues of private school buses. According to the statistics, the number of school bus accidents in the first 7 months of 2012 has doubled that of the same period in 2011. A number of children got hurt every time. However, a lot of these injuries can actually be avoided.
According to the news articles, the main cause of these accidents is the negligence of the safety procedures by the private school bus operators. One of the common scenarios is that students often knocked on the seats in front of them when the driver breaks the car suddenly. And this usually happens when the speeding car is nearly crashed. Such accidents reveal the drivers’ neglect of the safe driving speed. It may take less time to arrive at the destination by speeding, but at the same time, it has put the lives of the students at risk. What will happen if the driver could not brake the car in time? Therefore the problem of speeding is worrying.
Another situation which has raised my concern is the overloading of many school buses. According to the law, three children shorter than 130cm can be counted as two people, so it is not illegal to let three children occupy two seats only. However, it leads to potential danger. The school buses will have insufficient safety belts and cannot prevent severe injury of students when traffic accidents really take place. Also, the seats may not be ample enough and this increases the students’ chance to get injured by falling off their seats. Therefore, it is vitally important that every child should have their own seat.
The problem that worries me most is the absence of safety belts. Some school buses do not even install safety belts due to the high cost and inconvenience. I understand that according to the regulation, school bus service operators have to remove all safety belts every time when they send the school buses for inspection and undoubtedly this is quite troublesome as it takes the company time and manpower to do so. Some operators simply choose not to install the safety belts to avoid the inconvenience. However, just as what I have mentioned in the previous paragraph, safety belts can protect students from getting seriouslyinjured when traffic accidents really occur unfortunately. There is a piece of news reporting about a man who did not wear the safety belt went into a coma after being thrown out of the car in a crash. This proved the importance and the need for installing safety belts. The cost is worth paying. What can be more important than the passengers’ safety?
To address the three safety issues I mentioned above, I have three recommendations for your association.
First of all, your association could remind the private school bus service operators about the safety principle, such as installing safety belts and not getting overloaded. Some education work may help. By reminding the operators that following proper safety procedures can help them gain reputation, I believe they will try their best to ensure passengers’ safety.
Second, I recommend you inspect the school buses regularly. Examining the vehicles’ condition every half a year may help the industry to maintain the quality and safety level of them. After the inspection, your association can offer a certificate to the operator to recognize its safe service. Since the certificate can help the operator gain confidence from schools, I am sure they will cooperate and try to meet the safety requirements.
Last but not least, you shouldconstantly remind and emphasize to the operators bout relevant laws regarding safe operation of school buses. Stress that speeding is illegal and send the news articles about accidents caused by speeding to the operators as warning may help raise their awareness of safe driving. Hopefully it will lead to a decrease in the number of school bus accidents.
I hope your association would consider these recommendations and I look forward to the improvement in safety procedures carried out by the private school bus operators. Thank you for your attention.
Yours faithfully,
Chris Wong
Chris Wong