Keep children safe when taking them home, Abu Dhabi parents urge school bus drivers

School bus drivers are being urged to ensure they drop off children in safe places.

ABU DHABI // School bus drivers are being urged to ensure they drop off their charges in safe places.

Children are at risk of being struck by cars when being picked up and dropped off by the school bus near their homes on the corner of Airport Road and 15th Street in Abu Dhabi, parents said.

“Every day, school buses stop in front of apartment buildings to pick up and drop off children,” said Subramoniam S, 48, a resident in the area whose 13-year-old daughter Sathiya takes the school bus.

“Many of them stop on the wrong side of this two-way street, where children are likely to get hit.”

School buses on the street stop near the residential building entrance on a lane meant for oncoming traffic.

“Children would often get on or off the right side of the school bus, where cars drive past at high speed,” Mr Subramoniam said.

He posted a message on the Dunes Tower’s noticeboard warning parents about the risks of letting the driver drop off their children on the wrong side of the road. But some parents have requested bus drivers to drop their children near the building entrance, he said.

“It’s more convenient but these parents are not aware of the hazards and the risks of their children being involved in a traffic accident,” Mr Subramoniam said.

“Very few cars stop when they see these children boarding the bus. It’s even more dangerous in the afternoon when the bus drops them off from school as these children might run into oncoming traffic.”

Another resident Irfan Ali, 37, an electronics engineer from Pakistan, agreed.

“My wife insisted that the bus driver pick up and drop off our son near the entrance of our building,” Mr Ali said. “But I explained to her the dangers of stopping on the left side of the road.

“Vehicles will be passing on the right side of the bus, where children are entering and exiting.”

Glenn Havinoviski, associate vice president of the US traffic management company Iteris, said the school bus should always stop by the pavement on the right side of the street.

“It would make sense if there were school bus stops in every neighbourhood in lieu of stopping at every house. But I know a lot of these buses are private,” Mr Havinoviski said. “Nevertheless, establishing corner bus stops, say, near a stop sign, would provide a logical location where parking could be restricted and children could board the bus next to the kerb.”

At Emirates Transport, bus drivers are given a route map showing the suitable spots for children to embark and disembark.

“They can only stop on the same side of the street they are travelling on,” said Khalid Shukur, the health, safety and environment manager at Emirates Transport.

“If the building entrance is on the left side, they’ll need to take a U-turn and pick up or drop off the children door to door.”

All school transport operators, including schools directly providing bus services, must ensure that children are picked up from and dropped off in front of their residences, according to a guidebook for school transport regulations issued by the Department of Transport in 2013.

But if stopping in front of residences will cause traffic problems or if there are roadworks, the stopping point should not exceed 200 metres from the pupils’ residence.

It should be safe for the child to reach and should not require them to cross a street with a speed limit of more than 40kph.