New school buses mind safety first

Shanghai authorities on city's Chongming Island Tuesday defended their move to spend 6 million yuan ($949,800) on 17 standard new school buses, vowing to protect the safety of school children - after at least 35 kids in the country have died over the last three months from riding unsafe makeshift school buses.

The county said that it is committed to protecting the safety of children, after reported cases of overcrowding students into vans illegally operating as school buses have seen multiple deaths and injuries - angering the nation and highlighting the need to regulate the school bus industry.

"We felt the need to buy the school buses in order to ensure students have a safe method of transportation to and from school every day," Gong Yuanyuan, a press officer for Chongming county, told the Global Times Tuesday. "The need for reliable school buses is even more important here as our road conditions do not meet those of urban areas."

She said that each school bus was purchased for almost 390,000 yuan and will cost the county another 20 yuan per student to operate daily.

"But no child will have to pay more than 5 yuan per day," said Gong. "We'll subsidize the rest to make sure that families can afford to send their kids to school safely."

Henan-based Yutong Group, which is supplying the buses, said that the buses that some 800 Chongming students will start using this month after the winter break concludes have all passed safety inspection exams, including a rollover test.

"They are designed to provide enough space for students to survive, if the bus rolls over, plus each seat has a seat belt to protect children from harm in the case of accident," a manager from the company, who asked not to be named, told the Global Times Tuesday.

The manager stressed that the quality of the Chongming buses is no different from the school buses the company exports to the US and other European countries, which must pass strict safety tests.

Chongming Bus Group, meanwhile, will be in charge of operating the school buses that also come equipped with GPS systems. Fifty bus drivers with at least three years of experience driving a school bus will rotate on shift to bring students to and from school, said county authorities.