Date published: 2006/05/02
The BBC says:
The Conservatives have called for the school bus system to be expanded to cut down on traffic on the roads.
In a visit to Guildford, Surrey, party leader David Cameron said school buses should be safe, clean and reliable, to be an "attractive alternative" to cars.
He said just six per cent of children in the UK go to school on a school bus.
The government's Education and Inspections Bill gives English local authorities a duty to prepare a sustainable school transport strategy.
...
Mr Cameron later announced he was launching a working group on school buses.The group, made up of Tory parliamentary spokesmen on transport and education and councillors, will look at how a Conservative strategy on school transport provision could cut congestion and help the environment.
In a policy document, the Tory leader said the party would aim to provide "a much better range of choices for parents" who currently drive their children to school.
Education charity The Sutton Trust has called for US-style school buses to be introduced across England to improve pupil safety and ease traffic congestion.
In a report last year it said that a service costing taxpayers £124m a year would reduce the 40 deaths and 900 serious injuries caused annually by the school run.
...
The government's education bill places a duty on local authorities to provide free transport to pupils from low income families to attend any of three suitable secondary schools closest to their home, where these schools are more than two and less than six miles away.
...
The Department for Education pointed out that about 54% of primary school pupils and 32% of secondary school pupils travelled to school by either school bus or public transport.
...
The Liberal Democrats' Sarah Teather said: "With the school run now accounting for 20% of rush-hour traffic, there is an urgent need for government action. Why has it taken new Labour six years to act on its own report?"There are almost a million children driven less than a mile to school - no wonder obesity levels among six-year-olds have doubled to nearly one in 10.
Of course everybody believes school buses should be paid for by taxpayers and not by parents, and that is the heart of the problem. But non-parents already subsidise parents to the tune of billions of pounds per year (via free education, for starters) so what's another couple hundred of million pounds between friends? Of course if someone could convincingly demonstrate that the reduction in congestion (particularly during the morning rush hour) more than made up for the increased taxes, then obviously it would be a reasonable idea. (The problem is that would you believe anyone who did the sums, because most of the experts probably have an axe to grind.) The claim about school buses being more "environmentally friendly" is spurious (when you include not only the direct but indirect energy consumption).
The Sutton Trust presumably are not claiming that all the 40 deaths and 900 serious injuries would not happen, because many students are not eligible for buses (and would not be under any proposed system, because it would be far too expensive), in particular the million children a year allegedly (according to the Lib Dems) driven less than a mile to school. And also, there are of course bus accidents. In the United States, cars cannot pass a school bus picking up or letting off a student, whereas in Britain they can, which itself can lead to cars hitting students.
School buses are also not all they are made out to be. They are particularly bad for the few students (e.g. small ones or smart ones) who are picked on by other students ganging up. The school bus is the perfect place for hooligans to rule the roost, since the driver is too busy driving to pay much attention to what is going on with the kids.
Unfortunately the politicians of Britain are far too concerned with sound bites to ever make the case for anything reasonably and sensibly, with all the appropriate caveats. The world must be displayed as black and white.
_________________________________________________________
All material not included from other sources is copyright cambridge2000.com.
For further information or questions email: info [at] cambridge2000 [dot] com
(replace "[at]" with "@" and "[dot]" with ".").