Parents band together to make school bus seatbelt plea
OUR roads are more dangerous and we need seatbelts on our buses now.
That is the message from parents across the North Coast.
The North Coast Parents Bus Safety Action Group has formed to try to improve safety for children on our buses and one of their more recent claims is seatbelts for students travelling on the Pacific Hwy should be given priority.
"We have the added risks associated with high volumes of traffic and more heavy vehicles than most high-speed school routes," said head of the North Coast Parents Bus Safety Action Group, Jan Gill.
"The motor vehicle crash statistics for the older sections of the highway speak for themselves and we know it will be several years before all these sections are replaced with a much safer dual carriageway road."
The comments were made in the wake of a report from the School Bus Safety Community Committee, which recommended the State Government start paying for seat belts to be installed in school buses.
However the O'Farrell Government is not rushing to commit to the project, with Minister for Transport Gladys Berejiklian highlighting a gap between recommendations and government policy.
"The report was prepared independently by the School Bus Safety Community Committee and each of the recommendations is their own., Ms Berejiklian said.
"It is now up to the government to consider the report and decide how we will respond. We thank the committee's chairperson Carolyn Walsh, an independent expert in transport safety and regulation, for her work in preparing the report as well as committee members including road safety experts, transport operators, parents and school representatives."
