Mangalore: RTO Issues Guidelines to School Buses, Parents
DH News Service, Mangalore:
Mangalore, Aug 17: In the wake of school bus tragedy at Ullaibettu, RTO has directed all the educational institutions owning school buses to follow the following instruction directed by the High Court.
RTO Sadashiv said the school buses should have highway yellow colour and should write school bus or college bus in all the directions. It should have the name of the school, address and the telephone numbers. The school bus should have first aid.
He said “as per the High Court direction, if the students are below 12 years old, then two children for one seat. Accordingly, an autorickshaw can take only six students. The school bus should have horizontal reelings, and should have fire extinguisher.”
The driver of the bus should have minimum of five years experience in heavy vehicle driving and should not have any offense against him. The school bus should have an attendant and a teacher along with the driver. Speed governors should be installed to the school bus with a speed limit of 40 km/hr. Other road users should control the speed of their vehicle when they approach school bus.
Mr Sadashiv said a notice has been sent to all the educational institutions in the Mangalore RTO limits urging them to follow the rules and send an authorised letter to state that they are abiding the rules and come for inspection within seven days.
“We are thinking of introducing permit conditions to all the school buses. Violation of permit condition will be an offense,” he added.
RTO said “officials had seized 41 private vehicles which were involved in carrying school children in a special drive recently. A sum of 44,000 fine has been collected from them. We will conduct similar drive once again. If the vehicles were found violating the rules once again then we will cancel their RC,” he warned.