Public appeal for school bus safety
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Xinhua, December 13, 2011
In the wake of a number of recent tragic road accidents, the Chinese government has responded swiftly with proposed new laws to ensure the safety of school buses. While its efforts have met with some applause from the public, many have called for more to be done to ward against such tragedies.
Draft regulation on school bus safety management was made public Sunday by the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council, its ears pricked to gather public comment.
The draft proposed that school buses will have prioritized right of way in traffic under the command of police, the vehicles will be able to use bus lanes in rush hour, and private vehicles will be forbidden from overtaking when a school bus signals that it is picking up children.
According to an ongoing online survey conducted by Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like microblogging service, as of Monday afternoon, about 80 percent of respondents (3,590 out of 4,620) are in support of giving traffic priorities to school buses.
"Many privileges that government officials and their cars have in traffic are entirely unfair and outrageous, but I strongly support such privileges being given to children for their safety," Yixinyiyi wrote in a post accompanying the survey.
"Children are the future of the nation and deserve such privileges for their vulnerability in traffic," Woshiroroya wrote.
As of 5 p.m. Monday, at least 976 people had commented on each of the draft's 59 terms on www.chinalaw.gov.cn. And more than 240,000 Internet users had joined a discussion on the topic at Sina Weibo.
However, despite praise for its rapid response in drafting the proposals, many others questioned whether the government should bear the total expense of buying and maintaining school buses around the country.
The draft regulation does not specify to what extent the government will finance school buses. According to the Ministry of Education, as of April 2011, there were more than 285,000 buses used by all kindergartens, primary schools and junior high schools around China. Only 50,600 of them were bought by schools. Most were operated by car rental companies and even co-financed by parents.
It is unrealistic that the government covers all expenses for school buses, said Professor Yang Dongping with the Beijing Institute of Technology.
"But the government should not use that as an excuse to escape from its responsibility and leave the burden to society," Yang added.
It is estimated that the total expense of buying and maintaining buses for all primary and junior high schools in one year is about 450 billion yuan (69.2 billion U.S. dollars), which accounts for about 5 percent of the central government's revenue in 2010.
Many people hoped that the government would pay particular attention to financing buses for children in rural areas, where the distances being covered from homes to schools are generally greater than in cities.
School buses are not in great demand in urban areas because children usually attend nearby schools according to the regulation of compulsory education, said Wang Jingbo, a professor from the China University of Political Science and Law.
"I think the regulation is reasonable. The reason some urban children need to take school buses is because of their parents' pursuit of better schools far away from home," said Wang, noting that students in remote and rural areas require more attention from the government.
China has started nationwide school bus safety checks and pledged increased spending on school buses in the wake of one particular fatal accident that stirred public concern over safety.
Twenty-one people, including 19 preschoolers and two adults, died, and 43 others were injured last month when a nine-seater school bus illegally carrying 64 people collided head-on with a coal truck in Gansu province.
Several days after the accident, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called on the relevant government departments to "rapidly" create safety regulations and standards for the country's school buses while further improving the design, production and distribution of the vehicles.
The accident has revealed problems in the country's school bus management, including regulatory loopholes, unimplemented safety measures and a failure to carry out government responsibilities, according to a statement issued by the State Council's Work Safety Committee.
People are still worried about how government agencies could guarantee that the draft regulation is strictly implemented.
Of the 285,000 school buses in China, only 10 percent of the vehicles conform to a set of technical standards for school buses for primary school students that the Chinese government issued last year.
School buses should not be the only solution to getting children to school, said Yang Dongping. "The government should build up more kindergartens and primary schools so that children living in both rural and urban areas can choose the nearest and go to school by foot," he said.
