Call for scholar transport drivers to acquire qualifications
Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has called for stricter regulations in the scholar transport sector, including advanced driver training, vehicle identification, and improved oversight, following a crash that claimed the lives of 14 schoolchildren in Vanderbijlpark.
In an effort to address the challenge of drivers transporting schoolchildren being involved in fatal traffic accidents, Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has advocated for strengthening legislation to guarantee that scholar transport drivers are certified in advanced and defensive driving.
The minister said driver behaviour plays a significant role in road crashes. Furthermore, she proposed that all scholar transport vehicles be clearly marked.
She said the Department of Education and the Department of Transport must keep a separate database of scholar transport vehicles. This comes after 14 schoolchildren died in an accident while travelling to school in Vanderbijlpark on January 19.
“In terms of the National Land Transport Regulations, every private vehicle must have a contract between the operator and the school. They must carry a certified copy of the contract, which recognises that it is transporting learners to a particular school. That contract must be kept in the vehicle.”
“The second requirement of the existing law is that the driver must have a special identity document that identifies him or her as a scholar transport service provider, and that document must have the name of the driver, the identity number of the driver, the name of the operator, and a code indicating the type of vehicle that is being used,” Creecy said.
Furthermore, a teacher must supervise a transport vehicle that provides services to pre-primary children or primary school children. According to Creecy, the Department of Transport is in discussion with the South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO) on the introduction of tracking devices in vehicles and, in due course, the introduction of dashcams.
“Clearly, this is an issue that can be implemented over time, since it has economic implications for the operators themselves, but it is something that we would like to work toward as we govern driver behaviour in the trucking business. We should be able to control driver behaviour not only in the taxi sector as a whole, but also in the student transportation industry,” she said.
