Driving home a message

Driving home a message

As a long-distance walker, I get to experience many good and not-so-good incidents. But today, I have decided to share one of the sad experiences that I encounter on a daily basis; reckless driving by school bus drivers. The other day, with the help of a traffic police, I managed to stop a school bus which was speeding at more than 100 kilometers an hour in a narrow lane of Chetla, one of the busiest places in South Kolkata. To my surprise I found the children requesting me to please let the driver go. Friendly interrogation helped me find out that the children were encouraging their heroic driver uncle to speed up, to overtake the passing cars; they were also clapping and singing to celebrate the success of their driver uncle.

Is this the reason why school bus accidents are on the rise in India, I wonder. No, there are other reasons too. I also found out that the driver was in his early twenties driving toddlers to their homes. It is very sad to note that we react (by blaming, ransacking, etc.) when the accidents happen but do nothing to see how they can be prevented by some effective training methods; by policing or more aptly by parenting the process. When I was in Hyderabad, I found reckless driving by school buses of very famous international schools.

Here are my observations:

HR of every school needs to train the drivers, not to speed up, come what may. Punctuality is important but if the delay happens because of uncontrollable circumstances, then that needs to be allowed. Drivers also have the pressure to maintain their respective SLAs and speed up because of it. We need to remember it is better to reach than never to reach.

Teachers need to train the students NOT to ask the drivers to speed up and overtake, with the help of very effective and affectionate role plays. Why are all school buses of a certain color – this has to be driven in the minds of all the stakeholders. In this context, may I suggest a uniform color for all school bus drivers and helpers. If it is yellow for all school buses, it could be green.

Guardians also have a key role in grooming their children the evils of overtaking, with interesting stories and anecdotes.

Recruiting drivers of buses owned by the school as well as private school buses needs to be governed by the school authorities because drivers with more experience are less likely to be gullible.

I am sure there are other variables that need to be factored, but these are the very vital preventive measures that I could think of at the moment.

I did not disclose the name of the school because the purpose is not to blame, and snatching away the driver’s job or defaming the name of the school will certainly not help. I would sincerely like every guardian and all other stakeholders to take notice of this so they can have a robust, a foolproof system to ensure safety and security to the children who commute on school buses.