School buses on the South Coast will be fitted with sea belts, following a $29 million spend by the state government.
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In news that will be welcomed by many parents, the NSW Government has committed to funding the installation of seat belts on all buses to help avoid tragic deaths on the region’s roads.
Member for South Coast Shelley Hancock said all 42 buses on the South Coast will have seat belts by December 2019.
“This is a massive win for the South Coast where school bus safety and the use of seat belts have been a prominent and long-standing issue,” Mrs Hancock said.
“Following a tragic accident on the Princes Highway in 2001, members of the community established the Belt up for Safety Action Group (BUS) – a group designed to raise awareness about the safety of our children on buses travelling on rural and regional roads.”
Following a 2011 election commitment, the government formed the School Bus Safety Community Committee to investigate and report on issues relating to the safe transportation of children in rural and regional NSW.
BUS President Glenda Staniford, of Termeil, was a member of the committee, which handed down its report calling for a number of safety reforms including the installation of seat belts.
“All schools buses will be equipped with seat belts four years ahead of schedule, making the daily school run safer for our students,” Mrs Hancock said.
“More than 60,000 students across regional and rural NSW travel on a fleet of dedicated school buses each day. Those buses travel more than 250,000 kilometres daily, or more than 50 million kilometres each year.”
Funding in the 2017-18 NSW budget means all buses travelling on dedicated regional school routes will have seat belts by December 2019, ahead of the current schedule of 2023.
All 2,800 rural and regional buses will have seatbelts by December 2021.