Safety and Security Requirements for School Transport

On the occasion of the start of the new school year and the COVID-19 precautions, and in light of learning from previous lessons and the accidents of mass transport, whether caused by railway trains or by the vehicles used to transport pupils of various ages.

The school bus is one of the means of private transport, which the Traffic Law defines as those intended for transporting students or transporting workers and their families within a specified area.

The law requires that vehicles assigned to passengers and trips meet the conditions of safety and soundness, and pedestrians and drivers must comply with the rules and etiquette of traffic and follow traffic signals and the signs and instructions of traffic officers and the police.

The law contains the prohibitions on drivers, and sets out the driving rules that must be followed, among other rules.

The conditions of safety and soundness that vehicles must meet include many requirements aimed at achieving the highest levels of safety for passengers, pedestrians and society as a whole, such as compliance with the load and manufacturing conditions, the number of windows and the way they open, the steps and the way the seats are fixed to the floor of the vehicle.

And compliance with the dimensions of the seats in vehicles transporting schoolchildren, the limits of the width of the aisles, placing the handles within reach of the hands, and other requirements.

There are conditions for lighting, signal lights, reflectors, horns and the rear-view mirror, and everything that might cross your mind, whether related to the vehicle or its driver.

The law set conditions for private cars designed for nine passengers, and there are requirements for lorries and trailers, vehicles for people with special abilities, as they are called, taxis, tourist vehicles, fire engines, ambulances, hospital vehicles and hearses....

We note that the law included the conditions of safety and soundness for vehicles and their drivers in general, without addressing the modern technological means that must be available in vehicles transporting pupils or transporting our children with special abilities, in addition to the need to make drivers of various vehicles aware of the safety and security methods that must be followed while driving behind or beside school buses in the various streets and squares.

Hence we call on the Egyptian legislator to reconsider the safety and security requirements that must be met by vehicles transporting pupils to schools and by their drivers, and to develop the warnings that drivers must comply with to ensure the safety and security of our children and our society.

As for the school bus, there are many devices with which it must be equipped, such as GPS, and control of vehicle speed, whether through a mechanical speed limiter in the vehicle or electronic control through monitoring the vehicles and their drivers and directing them, as is done with tourist buses.

Equipping buses transporting schoolchildren with interior and rear cameras to detect any sleeping pupils or any belongings, with a careful inspection of them, and to show the area behind and at the sides in addition to the mirrors; fitting the seats with belts for the pupils; and the windows being of shatterproof glass.

And that each bus have more than one exit, with the possibility of fitting buses with a lowering step for people with special abilities and their wheelchairs, and fitting them with an electronic arm carrying a warning to drivers behind and around the bus to be careful while pupils are crossing, with central control of the doors by the driver to prevent children tampering with them.

As for the driver of the school bus, his tests must include a psychological and neurological test and a measurement of his emotional stability and his sense of security and humanity, at set intervals, to ensure his competence and abilities.

It is also important to run programmes to raise the awareness of and instruct drivers, especially microbus drivers, who are the source of corrupt conduct against the taste, art and ethics of driving, together with their unacceptable thuggish traits.

Here, no new schools could be licensed except in accordance with the new safety and security requirements, with a (transitional period) set for existing schools, institutes and universities to regularize their situation, and a ban on future contracts with any vehicles, buses or microbuses that do not meet the proposed conditions of safety and soundness.