Wanaka Primary School is calling on the government to review school bus policies that currently allow for pupils to stand in the aisle while travelling on the open road, believing it to be a major safety risk.
School board chairman Andrew Howard said the New Zealand Transport Agency's (NZTA) 'certificate of loading' regime allows school buses to load children to the point some are forced to stand.
"I was very surprised to hear that standing is not only allowed but positively encouraged under the current system. We consider children of any age having to stand in the aisles of school buses to be extremely unsafe and potentially life threatening," Mr Howard said.
"These are large vehicles travelling at 80kmh on the open road in all weathers. There are additional risks in our district with often severe winter driving conditions and inexperienced tourist drivers not used to New Zealand roads. Studies suggest that pedestrian survival rates in an accident with a vehicle travelling at 80kmh are zero.
The same could be said for standing passengers in a moving bus.”
The school has received support from Queenstown Lakes District Mayor Jim Boult, who questioned the legislation in a letter to the Ministry of Education.
“We don’t for one minute condone adults riding in motor cars without seatbelts, yet we are prepared to allow the most precious part of our community – our children – to stand up unrestrained on the open road. The situation does seem ludicrous," Mr Boult wrote.
Mr Howard said the situation could be resolved either by the Ministry of Education adopting a one-seat-per-child funding formula or by the Ministry of Transport changing legislation to stop allowing passengers to stand on buses when travelling on the open road.
He said the Ministry of Education had conducted its own study and found the cost of providing a seat for all children would cost about $1.4 million.
"This seems like a small price to pay for dramatically improving the safety of our children."
School trustees are currently awaiting a response from the Ministry of Education.
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The loading requirements for school children are not related to safety. They are simply based on weight! I learned this a long time ago when railing against the overloading of buses carrying children to Logan Park High School from Port Chalmers, also on the open highway. I wondered why there were different loading requirements for primary, intermediate and secondary school children.
The answer was simple. It is weight! Primary school children weigh less on average than secondary school children. So each bus is licensed to carry more primary school children than secondary school children. The school children are the same as any other freight! Some school buses are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, a few may be overseen by the ORC, but most back then were in a murky no-mans land where they were effectively treated like any other freight vehicle.
By the looks of it, the Wanaka Primary School bus service comes under the Ministry but even they seem to rely on the weight criteria. The smaller they are, the more you can pack in! The children are treated like livestock!