After 2 fatal accidents where a teenager was killed crossing the road from a school bus there are a few comments localy that school buses should stop ALL traffic when they are taking on or letting of children as in America .
What do the forum members think?
should there be a total ban on passing a school bus ,
would traffic training for children do more good ,
some other safety measures ,please suggest if you have any thoughts.
Edited by Pugugly on 24/09/2008 at 23:15
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Defender, good question, I had been thinking this after hearing of the latest fatality.
On one hand you think that kids should know when its safe to cross the road and there is only so much protection you can give them, but on the other hand I feel that every bit of protection you could give, and that includes not allowing overtaking school buses, would be worth it if it meant a life was saved.
But, and there are always buts, it works in America with big Yellow school buses with flashing lights. We don't have that. Also, are we lulling the kids into a false sense of security not allowing vehicles to pass so that in turn may lead to kids assuming the road is clear when it might not be?
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I'm playing the devil's advocate.
The Darwin theory comes in here. If the parents don't teach them road safety, and/or they don't learn road safety. Isn't it better they don't survive to reproduce?
;>) ;>) ;>)
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"If the parents don't teach them road safety, and/or they don't learn road safety. Isn't it better they don't survive to reproduce"
My cousin was killed when she saw her mother waiting for her on the other side of the road, jumped off the bus and in her excitement ran straight into the path of another bus. She was six at the time, I guess my Uncle must have been a total moron or something for not teaching her enough road safety. Still, he got his come-uppance, that's for sure, and still cries himself to sleep some forty years later. Fortunately, she didn't survive and reproduce.
Even in Poland, one of the few rules that absolutely everybody obeys is you simply never, ever, ever overtake a stationery tram.
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What about a total ban on teenagers crossing the road? That, being a general safety measure, would make more sense.
If there was a total ban on passing school buses, it would also seem reasonable to prevent traffic from passing schools at going to school time, and home time.
No, IMO, go back to the Old Days, and teach 'em how to cross the road properly.
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Bring back Tufty.......
Bring back Tufty.......
Gimme a T.....
Gimme a U.....
;-)
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Willy Weasel....mmmm
I'd like to compare stats with the US for child pedestrian fatalities/serious injuries per head of pop.....
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does anyone know how much time is spent teaching road safety in school ?
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There are enough hold-ups already without having a queue of sixty cars build up every time the school bus stops. The number of fatalities in these circumstances are miniscule, you can't bring a new law in everytime a teenager dies.
slight edit....
Edited by Pugugly on 25/09/2008 at 00:09
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I think that there are steps to formalise training for young children through a scheme called
Kerbcraft
More here
www.kerbcraft.org/
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... compare stats with the US for child pedestrian fatalities ..
Pedestrians in the US?
Even if you could find the few that there may be, I think the US has laws against "jaywalking", laws which may be imposed with a "zero tolerance" attitude.
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BBD that's an awful story and brings to mind a documentary I saw in the early 90s about speeding in which the parents of a child who had been killed in similar circumstances (rushing to greet her father)were interviewed. The father looked like he would crumble into dust so grief stricken was he year later and sometimes I replay the image in my mind when I find myself getting cocky when I should be excercising control.
But...can we legislate for children's exuberance? I honestly don't think so and I write that as the father of all too exuberant 9 year old and a frankly daft 12 year old.
The example I described above was a child simply running out of a playground and being hit by someone doing a shocking speed and that driver is not gpoing tp pay attention to rules around bus stops if he's not going to obey a speed limit.
Do you think there is any particular reason that the Poles take this bit of road safety especially seriously?
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"Do you think there is any particular reason that the Poles take this bit of road safety especially seriously?"
Most of the time the trams have their own path it's only when they share the road with cars that it becomes important and really only when they're using the central strip so that commuters literally disembark onto the carriageway. They have to take it seriously quite frankly otherwise they'd mow down people by the dozen.
My own daughter is 6 now and has no road sense whatsoever. We live at the far end of a gated cull-de-sac so little or no traffic passes our house and the kids play there in safety. On the other hand they aren't learning the things I had to learn around Manchester to stay alive.
I seem to remember the green cross code being a high priority when I was at primary school. It was always being pressed upon us, we had visits from the police every year and that gave enormous gravitas to the issue. Nobody messed around in those lessons. I remember being taught never to cross diagonally because it takes longer, I still have that diagram in my head that the teacher drew. And the public information films of course, Tufty. Why don't we have them anymore?
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My own daughter is 6 now and has no road sense whatsoever.
My child is 6 3/4. Some road sense, but certainly not enough to cross independently yet - knows what to do, but has "moments".
I am instructing on how to cross safely. I ask to be "crossed over" myself. This is useful in observing learning progress.
I remember being taught (crossing, etc.) (..)Why don't we have them anymore?
Dunno. We should, though. Not that ineffectual & silly hedgehog thing, either.
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It's worth looking into. You'd have to adopt distinctive school buses, and the US ones also have a nifty fold out barrier to deter children from crossing in front of the bus - this and/or the no-overtaking rule could be looked at.
Whilst accidents are inevitable, preventing unnecessary and tragic deaths of children is an aim worth pursuing. It really wouldn't bother me - I often wait behind buses anyway where sight lines are poor and there is a possibility of other traffic or pedestrians being obscured from view.
Unfortunately some motorists need to be told what to do. Tonight I was close to being hit head on by a car overtaking a cyclist.
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It's a great idea. There are also school zones with a 15mph (?) speed limit and strict rules about no overtaking or passing other cars. If one lane is doing 5mph, every other car must do 5mph or less.
Similar with road works, with the added bonus that if you get stopped while there are people actually working in the road, you can expect double penalties.
The policeman that explained it to me said "we look after our children here", suggesting that we simply eat our children in the UK. Will miss American driving - overtaking in all lanes, right turns on red lights, the relaxed attitude etc.
Probably won't miss all-way stops (they are putting roundabouts in more recent developments) and HGVs doing 75-80mph.
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Was it confirmed that the poor lass had actually been on a SCHOOL bus?
The way I read reports, it was an ordinary, common or garden variety.
A great shame, either way.
tt
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In my previous job I had to occasionally drive around an American air base (for those unfamiliar the residential section is like a small town in the USA) and was alarmed/horrified to see all the children, when on their way to school, crossing roads without pausing on the kerb or even a glance either way, as if they had a force field around them which vehicles would bounce off.
I suppose with the 'halt for school buses' and 'sue if you bruise me' culture this is an understandable mindset for them to get into, but do we want our teenagers following this example, they are bolshie enough as it is.
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If bus stops had a section of railing, with a gap coinciding with the bus doors, then no one would be able to get off the bus and immediately set off across the road. They would have to either walk along the road a bit to the end of the railings, or wait until the bus had gone and use the gap.
Round us school buses don't stop at bustops, they just pull up anywhere they please, often at junctions, and regardless of other traffic.
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Here, we have a law, which is actually often obeyed, of max speed when passing a school bus stopped for passengers { on or off } of 20 km/hr. Buses so engaged have a large sign front and rear just reading School.
In Queensland, Australia, buses engaged on school duties have flashing amber lights rather like enlarged turn indicators but high up, and large signs saying 30 km/hr when lights flashing.
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Children need to be taught very early in life by their parents. By the time they reach primary-school age they should already have a good sense of road safety. The overwhelming majority do. The last time I had to stop dead from a slow pace in a residential road was when one five or six year old from one family (noted for its lack of social sensibility) went wild when all the others from another family behaved sensibly. It comes from basic discipline imposed by parents. Schools can build on that, but shouldn't be regarded as the sole agent -- as in so many other respects too.
That said, I'd welcome broadcast reminders to drivers about the need for extreme caution when kids are milling about. But when did we last see one of the old-style public-information campaigns?
On the other hand, haughty teenagers don't help the general cause, asserting their supreme God-given authority by sauntering across zebra crossings and wandering into roads, assuming that it is their "right of way" -- what a dangerous concept -- and that any incident will obviously be the fault of the motorist.
I can't see a radical change being practicable without the conspicuous universal uniformity of the buses in the US system. As that would be expensive, it won't happen. Safety costs and governments are not as interested in it as they like us to think they are.
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Cliff you must have read my mind as thats exactly what I thought , I call it the 20 yard problem as they all happen within 20 yards of the bus and fitting railings with a gap as you say would cure this along with proper road safety training and PARENTS as well as schools must do a share of this .
My fear is that to stop all traffic for school buses might just move to a bigger problem when the kids use another bus and the traffic doesnt stop .
In one of the accidents the bus was actually in a proper bus layby at the side of a 60 mph road when the girl (aged 15) crossed the road
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the US system is crazy
the bus stops and the kids all run off in all directions across all the roads cos they expect the traffic to all stop
come the day a driver has not spotted the bus the kids will be dead
far far better to teach the kids proper road sense
and kids in england are already too cocky thinking they can walk in front of cars and it will always be the drivers fault if there are problems
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Not just pedestrians, but a lot of drivers seem to imagine that it will make a difference whose fault it was, after they are dead along with any innocent passers-by and perhaps their car. Similar thinking to the man who imagines he will end up in heaven with a lot of concubines after blowing himself and a lot of innocent citizens up.
I blame the highway code, which people see as a set of beautifully-crafted, unbreakable rules instead of a crude schematic basic beginners' course in how to drive without causing accidents.
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