Investigating school bus safety

International road safety charity, the Eastern Alliance for Safe and Sustainable Transport (EASST) has developed an online survey to find out about parents’ attitudes towards safety on school buses across the UK.

EASST works with fleet managers internationally to ensure that they are aware of the dangers of driving and how they can prevent collisions and fatalities. School bus drivers are responsible for all the students on the bus but fleet managers are responsible for all the students on all the buses.

The aim of this survey is to provide an insight into safety on school buses across the UK and to inform EASST’s training programme for fleet managers on the most effective way to ensure every child has a safe journey to school.

Local authorities in the UK are obliged to provide free school transport for pupils aged between five and 16 years old if their nearest school is more than three miles away and nearly one million pupils rely on these services.

Children and young people are particularly vulnerable on our roads, with road traffic collisions being one of the leading causes of death for school age children. Furthermore, statistics show that road traffic incidents involving young people are most likely to take place between 3 – 5pm, just as they are on their way home from school.

EASST’s survey aims to explore safety on school buses by asking parents to provide their views on school bus safety in this short survey. The survey will take just a couple of minutes to complete and will remain open until 31st October 2017. The results will be analysed and used to inform EASST’s work on ensuring that every child has a safe and healthy journey to and from school every day.