The subdelegate of the government in A Coruña, reported that throughout this week, the Traffic Groups of the Civil Guard will carry out traffic control and surveillance services, with special attention to the campaign on school transport.
The control and monitoring campaign on school transport is part of the relevance of passenger transport, which is even more important, if possible, of the regime of passenger transport linked to the school environment, which according to data from the INE in 2022 served more than 200,000 schoolchildren.
María Rivas indicated that during the campaign, the work of inspecting the vehicles destined for school transport will be intensified, checking the documentation related to the necessary authorizations for the provision of the service, as well as the vehicle itself in relation to its technical conditions and safety elements. Special attention will also be paid to the professional driver, his/her qualification and driving licence, as well as his/her driving and rest times.
In order to intensify the results of the campaign and extend the interventions to the urban roads of circulation, the subdelegate of the Government in A Coruña indicated that the municipalities will be invited to join it, establishing control and surveillance measures on school transport during those dates.
María Rivas recalled that in the school transport campaign carried out from 22 to 26 May last year in the province of A Coruña, the Civil Guard controlled a total of 192 vehicles and collected 162 complaints, of the 293 that were made.
Among others, the reasons for the complaints were related to permits and papers necessary for the provision of the service, such as the special authorization of school transport, with 64 complaints; the unlimited liability insurance, with 51, and the school transport signal, which collected 10.
The subdelegate stressed that school transport is the first road safety collective that reaches a “zero vision” objective with zero deaths in traffic accidents since 2012, and is one of the safest means for the group of users of the roads from zero to fifteen years, as stated in the study published by the Fundación Línea Directo entitled “School transport: our children travel safely?”.
The study points out that the majority of accidents in school transport with victims are concentrated in interurban roads, with distractions being the most frequent punishable offenses, followed by neglect of the priority of other vehicles, inadequate speed and failure to respect the safety distance. It also identifies that Galicia, Andalusia and the Valencian Community are the autonomous communities with the most accidents in school transport. The Galician case is especially striking, since it only accounts for 5% of general accidents, but 21% of school transport accidents.
The General Directorate of Traffic’s Guide “To school always safe” points out that 90% of traffic accidents involving children that occur in connection with school transport to school take place at the time of getting in or out of the vehicle, or just in the immediate moments and, in many cases, are atrocities caused by a distraction. It also mentions that a large proportion of these serious injury claims are related to the lack of proper use of security belts.
For all of this, it establishes a series of recommendations to parents, such as never standing behind the bus since they do not see us, waiting for a signal from the driver and always crossing at least three meters ahead, sitting and with his belt on, not running either on arrival or on departure, looking on both sides before crossing and always doing it in the area of traffic lights or pawn passes, walking inside the sidewalk, far from the edge, not crossing the streets or squares diagonally or zigzagging, being careful with the cars that enter and leave the garages, going left on the road, and at night, carrying reflective pieces.