Don’t overload school buses - Police warn school authorities

Management of schools and drivers of school vehicles have been warned to desist from overloading the buses with schoolchildren.

According to the police, it is an offence to overload all vehicles, and school buses are not an exception.

The Commanding Officer of the Central Motor Transport and Traffic Directorate (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service, DCOP Alex Amponsah-Asiamah, who gave the warning, said: “Every vehicle has a maximum number of passengers it is supposed to carry and this applies to school buses as well”.

“If the school bus has been registered to take 23 passengers, for instance, it should carry just that number of schoolchildren. You cannot go beyond that limit with the simple reason that the passengers are children. It is an offence,” he warned.

In the city of Accra, especially the suburbs, it is common to find schoolchildren who have been overloaded in school buses which pick them to and from school each day. 

In some cases, the children are so packed that three of them sit on a seat. The situation is rampant when schools go on excursions.

Speaking in an interview, DCOP Amponsah-Asiamah quoted the law under Regulation 137 of the Road Traffic Regulation, that says: ‘A person who drives a taxi, omnibus or other passenger-carrying vehicles shall not carry a number of persons that exceed the number of persons determined by the Licensing Authority to be carried by that vehicle and stated in the vehicle registration documents.”

He said any driver, whether a school bus driver or not, “who contravenes the regulation commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of not less than 10 penalty units, that is GH¢120 and not more than 25 penalty units or to a term of imprisonment of not more than 30 days or to both.”

On the dangers associated with the overloading of schoolchildren in school buses, he said in the case of any accident, there was the risks of more injuries and deaths involving the children.

Some of the schoolchildren could also hit their heads against the dashboard while the vehicle is in motion, he emphasised.

DCOP Amponsah-Asiamah has, therefore, called on Parent-Teacher associations of schools to take the issue up with school authorities so as to address the problem.

He also called on the general public to report to the police school buses that have been overloaded with schoolchildren.

“Everybody should take interest in this matter. Schoolchildren are human beings and should be treated with dignity,” he stressed.

In an interview with some schoolchildren who had continuously suffered from being overloaded in their school buses each day as they went to school, they complained of so much discomfort during the journey.

Akua, a Class Six pupil of a school at Kokrobitey in the Ga South Municipality, said because she was older than most of the pupils, she was always made to carry a younger pupil on her lap.

“By the time the school bus does all the rounds to pick other pupils and gets to the school, I am very tired. Sometimes, because of the congestion in the bus, even stretching my legs becomes a problem,” she lamented.

Another pupil, five-year-old Maame Serwaa, said although she often sat on the laps of an older pupil, another pupil is also made to sit on her and it’s painful.

She said even though she got tired, she was afraid to complain to the teachers who usually accompanied the driver to pick them up.

In an interview with a parent who gave his name only as Paa Kwesi, he said in his daughter’s school, for instance, the pupils used to be overloaded in the school bus because the bus only went on one trip to pick up pupils.

However, following numerous complaints from parents, the school bought another bus but even that was still not enough as some of the children sat on the laps of others,” he added.

When the Junior Graphic spoke to a teacher who asked to remain anonymous, she said most of the parents did not want to pay extra money as fares for the transportation of their children to school.

She explained that the school overloaded the buses to cut cost since it could not bear the cost of a number of trips to pick up the children daily.

She said where her school was located, it would cost GH¢6 by taxi to and from school, however, the same school is compelled to charge parents only GH¢3 for the trip because they were often unwilling to pay more.