Muscat: With the new academic year set to begin next week on September 1, the Royal Oman Police (ROP) has urged bus drivers and other stakeholders to take all steps hat are essential to ensure the safety of children.
Major Harith Moosa al Kindi from the directorate general of ROP traffic, said that school bus drivers must be patient and vigilant, focus on the road, and follow traffic rules.
To ensure that no student is left behind in the bus while traveling to school or returning home, he said, "Unfortunately, there have been incidents where students have been left behind in buses in the past, we try to raise awareness with bus drivers as much as possible, to make regular checks when students board the bus and when they leave the bus. We also try to educate school employees to focus more on these areas."
ROP said it is evaluating new technologies to ensure that these incidents don't occur and the use of onboard cameras will help not just to monitor the driver's behavior, but will ensure that no student is left behind on the bus.
Al Kindi said that there will be more police patrols near schools to avoid run-over accidents. "ROP is always evaluating and studying new zones to increase police patrol and the police presence around schools."
It may be noted that one or two cases of students left behind are reported each year despite active campaigns by the authorities, In some cases, there have been loss of lives too.
"One of the main reasons is that students are tired after long days in school or due to lack of adequate sleep at night, which makes them fall asleep inside buses and miss the bus stop," said a manager of a school bus operator
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