Campaign launched to strengthen school bus safety

BEIJING - Traffic management departments around China have launched a special campaign to strengthen school bus safety, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) said Friday.

An unidentified official from the Traffic Management Bureau under the MPS said the campaign will focus on cracking down on illegally-assembled school buses, speeding, overloading, unqualified school bus operations and other violations of related regulations.

During the campaign, illegally-assembled school buses and those that have reached discard standards will be confiscated and discarded by traffic management bureaus, and the drivers and owners of those school buses will be strictly punished, the official said.

Individuals who provide school bus services without relevant qualifications and drivers operating school buses without being qualified to do so will also face strict punishments.

Traffic management departments will strip drivers' qualifications for operating school buses if the drivers do not meet the standards set by the Regulation on School Bus Safety Management due to traffic regulation violations and accidents, the official said.

Motor vehicles that do not avoid school buses when students are getting on and off will also be punished according to law, the official added.

Implemented on April 5, the regulation came after a string of school bus accidents occurred in China last year, prompting the government to introduce new safety regulations and standards for school buses to better ensure students' safety and allay public concern.

Students' safety on their ways to and from schools have attracted great public attention.

The Traffic Management Bureau on Friday issued proposals on students' safety on their ways to and from schools. Those proposals include conducting road-crossing safety exercises, choosing safe school buses and making students more visible on the road, among others.