Safety on school buses. - Real Mum story on MoM

Hi mums,

I am becoming more and more worried and concerned about the safety of our school buses and more importantly the safety of our children that travel on school buses. For years I have worried and been concerned about the fact that school buses can carry children standing up, this also applies to town buses as well (INDEED ALL BUSES) it makes so much sense to be seated due to the risk of falling over whilst standing on a moving bus and lets not even mention the fact of what could happen if there was an accident. Now that leads me to another problem I have, I am confused as to why seat belts are not supplied in buses, yes I am aware it is a shorter trip and one must quickly rise at ones bus stop but we are required to use seat belts in cars by law, so why are buses any different? We are not permitted to stand in a car or truck whist the vehicle is in motion, yet we can travel and our children can travel on a large bus even on long journeys unrestrained and standing without a problem. Viewing school buses every day makes me shutter, seeing crowded buses full to the brim with our young, packed standing up the aisles, I fear is and accident and death waiting to happen. So in closing wondering what your view on buses are also I am aware that some of the buses our beautiful children ride in are defective and I am going to cut and paste a article from the newspaper in-case some of our mums have missed the read. Love to hear your thoughts. Regards cherz.

Police blitz at Busabout’s Smeaton Grange depot finds 32 out of 88 buses had defects
DOZENS of school buses were among those found to have dangerous defects during a police blitz on a bus depot in Western Sydney yesterday.

Police and Roads and Maritime Service officers swooped on the Smeaton Grange depot of Busabout in Sydney’s southwest yesterday. They found 32 out of 88 buses had defects.

A vast majority of the defective buses are used to carry children on busy morning and afternoon school runs.
The defects on the buses included problems with suspension, steering, tyres, brakes and warning lights.

Six of the buses at the depot had “major defects” and three were grounded during the inspections. One had no working brake lights.

Acting Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith said the blitz was targeting bus driver fatigue and vehicle standards following a spate of serious bus crashes earlier this month.

Busabout was not linked to those crashes.
It’s not good enough,” Mr Smith said of the defects.

“Passengers getting on a bus and paying for the privilege expect that the vehicle they are getting into is roadworthy and safe.

“Given these large vehicles also transport our children to and from school each day, they must be mechanically sound and able to operate safely all of the time.

“As with other areas of the heavy vehicle industry, maintenance regimes must be followed effectively for the benefit of road safety.”
The Busabout depot targeted in yesterday’s blitz operates public transport and coach services in Liverpool, Lurnea, Casula, Prestons, Glenfield, Miller, Hoxton Park, Austral and Bringelly.

The company will be required to fix the defects and have the buses checked by the RMS before they can return to the roads.

Mr Smith warned other companies that the crackdown would continue.

“Given what we’ve found so far, it’s certainly our intention to continue this audit process,” Mr Smith said.

Police also carried out drug and alcohol tests but the company’s drivers all passed.

Originally published as Buses get an ’F’ in police safety blitz

Posted by cherz, 3rd July 2014

7 Comments

- - june11 said
  - 14 Mar 2016
    7:27 pm
I would like to see bus drivers wait for passengers to sit down, even in the front seats they “take off” while you are trying to sit down. I heard one lady politely ask a driver to wait until she sat down. She could walk ok but it was obvious her balance wasn’t 100%l What does he do? Start driving while she is actually trying to sit down. He didn’t like it when she said “excuse me, I asked you politely to wait until I sat down, he started mumbling and carrying on, so some of us who heard her ask called out and said, “she did ask you politely so how about you show the lady some courtesy” He wasn’t running late because when he got to a special time bus stop he had to wait for the appropriate time before he could move off. Another Day I sat at the back of a bus as they were the only seats available. When he turned the last corner just before the final stop of that route I slid off the seat. Maybe he thought there was no passengers left, I don’t know. I picked myself up off the floor.

- - mom113055 said
  - 18 Jul 2015
    3:25 pm
really nice

- - mummamj said
  - 11 Sep 2014
    11:22 pm
I also do not understand why seat belts are not compulsory. I consider myself lucky to have never been in an accident growing up as I traveled on a bus that went out of town as a child and it was often overcrowded and some children had to stand up or be crammed three to a seat. It was bad enough when the driver had to slam on the brakes and you hit your head on the steel rail on the seat in front. It is high time seat belts in buses became mandatory

- - Michelle said
  - 28 Jul 2014
    10:41 am
For the life of me I can never work out why they don’t have seat beats at least on school buses.

- - hopefullyheidi said
  - 08 Jul 2014
    2:31 pm
Thank goodness the police actively did something about those buses. I agree seatbelts should be worn in buses and all passengers should be required to be seated.

- - BellaB said
  - 04 Jul 2014
    4:44 pm
I don’t understand why seatbelts aren’t required on buses, especially school buses. (and I do hope you didn’t infringe copyright by pasting that article in.)
- cherz replied
  
  05 Jul 2014 , 2:19 pm
  Gosh so do I ..did not even think about it. Thanks …lets hope I’ll be ok.