It was just in the news that the Singapore Gahmen or some authority or other is now thinking of making it mandatory for school buses to have seat belts. I think this may be a reaction to a recent accident where a school bus ferrying a busload of primary school children overturned on its side. No one suffered any serious injury.
If they do make it mandatory for school buses to install seat belts, that may lead to higher school bus fees which already have been increasing ever so often, much to the chagrin of parents.
Now my question is why the authorities bother looking into seat belts on buses when many children and even babies are not strapped in or using child seats when travelling in a car? A child or baby sitting on an adult's lap in the front passenger seat is not an uncommon sight here. I should think that the risk of serious injury and death is much higher in the case of a car accident than a bus accident. I doubt you could suffer any serious injury in a bus accident unless the bus falls off a cliff. So unless it was a bus travelling up Genting Highlands I really don't think seat belts are all that necessary.
Shouldn't the authorities first focus on safe car travel and strictly enforce the belt up and child seat law? It doesn't seem that they actually enforce that law so if they do introduce the bus seat belt regulation, it's likely they wouldn't enforce that either. Why bother passing laws that you don't enforce??!
4 comments:
Fitting school buses with seat belts is a one-off expenditure and shouldn't cause increase in fares. Agree that it's illogical to make it mandatory for school buses to have seat belts. The bus driver should be more careful and drive slowly for the safety of the kids instead.
That's what a bus driver interviewed on the news said - they drive slowly anyway and although his bus has seat belts, the kids wouldn't use them and like to walk up and down the bus.
I fully support the idea to install seat belts. They shd have done it long ago.
When my kids were younger, I often wondered why the gahmen made such a fuss about seat belts for cars and look the other way for school buses. My son for example often fell asleep in the school bus and can easily fall over. As for school buses driving slowly, I think that is an exception. Most of them liked to speed. Even my kids say so.
Hi Chun See. If it was really as dangerous riding without a seat belt in a bus as it is in a car, then we should have seat belts on public buses as well and not just school buses. But my point is that it is already a law that a child should be belted up in a child seat but I see that law flouted all the time so really why bother with seat belts in school buses when it is not likely to be enforced either.
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