Sunday 05 / May / 2024
Muscat: With the start of the new academic year, the Royal Oman Police (ROP) has urged school bus drivers to adhere to traffic regulations for the safety of school students.
With the start of each new academic year, the Royal Oman Police works to secure traffic, reduce traffic congestion, and maintain the safety of students and school bus drivers, in addition to educating vehicle drivers and urging them to cooperate and adhere to traffic regulations for the safety of school students.
Major Issa bin Salem Al Nabhani, Assistant Director of the Traffic Safety Institute Department, said: "The Royal Oman Police always seeks to ensure the safety of road users and reduce traffic congestion by securing bus lanes, increasing police presence, removing traffic jams if they exist, and other measures that ensure safe access for students to and from schools. There is an existing cooperation mechanism between the Royal Oman Police and the Ministry of Education to educate students and school bus drivers by holding awareness lectures and workshops related to traffic safety."
Traffic safety institutes in all governorates of the Sultanate of Oman also play a major role in the areas of awareness, training and services provided to the public. They are specialised training institutes that aim to train vehicle drivers and road users from all segments of society. They play an integral role in instilling the concept of road safety in the hearts of young people and promoting traffic culture among road users.
The Assistant Director of the Traffic Safety Institute Department stated that community partnership between government and private agencies is a basic requirement in which all segments of society participate. From this standpoint, PDO has initiated the signing of a cooperation program with the Royal Oman Police and the Ministry of Education to qualify and train a large number of school bus drivers in a number of governorates of the Sultanate of Oman. The programme also included practical training for driving vehicles using simulation systems. Another program aims to train and qualify students aged between 8 and 18 on traffic safety rules.
Major Issa Al Nabhani stressed that ensuring the safety of students during their transportation from their gathering places to schools and during the boarding and disembarking of students from the bus is one of the responsibilities that the bus driver must take into account. Vehicle drivers must also cooperate with bus drivers to avoid traffic accidents and take caution while passing students' gathering places.
Al Nabhani said that parents who transport their children must adhere to safe parking rules and not drop them off at the edge of the road or far from their schools. He pointed out that the family has an important role in educating their children on traffic safety rules and the correct behaviour during traffic accidents or forgetfulness inside the bus and pedestrian crossing places.
Major Issa Al Nabhani said: "It is obligatory for the bus driver to make sure that the vehicle is empty of all students after they get down by checking all the bus seats to make sure that there are no students left on the bus. They must also leave some of the bus windows open in order to provide oxygen to students in the event that one of them is forgotten inside the bus. Parents and teachers must also educate the students about ways to act in case of being stranded inside the bus, including pressing the horn to draw the attention of those close to the bus so that they can provide assistance to the students.”
