On April 8, the Ministry of Education announced that – starting from this year – all school buses must be registered online in a national information management system. This will reportedly make it easier to track accidents involving school buses, evaluate driver performance, and improve the quality of bus service. This new measure is designed to increase public security.
Due to the number of accidents involving school buses in the past few years, more attention was given to screening drivers and reforming bus licensing systems in 2012. But it wasn’t enough – school buses, especially in rural areas, continued to be involved in many traffic accidents.
Because there are fewer schools, children in rural areas must often travel farther to reach their institutions. School buses in these areas are often overloaded or unlicensed as a result.
In these cases, online registration would not do much to resolve the problem. Authorities should instead start to allocate more buses for areas where the need is higher in order to guarantee a safe trip for the children.
School buses are a necessity for many kids; riding one should not be a daily risk to their lives. Let’s hope that the authorities will be able to gradually resolve the problem and that there will not be any more accidents.
Photo by Caitlinator (Flickr)
