Ajman bus tragedy puts spotlight on children’s safety
TThough technology is an important factor, the driver is the key human element, who must ensure not a single child is left behind in the vehicle at the end of each trip. Thomas Edelmann Founder and MD, Roadsafetyuae
he horrors of children’s deaths in buses and cars due to carelessness of drivers and supervisors, and family members, are in focus following the tragic death of a three-yearold boy in Ajman on Monday.
The Arabic boy was left locked up in the bus for at least four hours before the negligent supervisor found him in the bus in a critical condition.
Though he was rushed to a hospital, he choked to death.
The Ajman tragedy brought back memories of a similar incident at Al Quoz in Dubai in June 2019, when a six-year-old boy of Indian origin had dozed off after boarding a 14-seater school bus.
The driver and other pupils failed to notice the sleeping child, who was seated in the second row of the bus, when they alighted from the vehicle. His limp body was discovered from the bus seven hours later, after the vehicle was parked and locked.
These incidents underscore the police’s repeated advisories about the dangers of leaving behind children in locked vehicles.
Thomas Edelmann, the founder and the managing director of Roadsafetyuae, weighed in on the disturbing trend.
He said the best way to deal with this problem is by installing devices in buses to ensure that no child is left behind in locked vehicles.
He also dwelt on the quality and standard of buses and drivers and, the key human element, whose errors could cost a child’s life.
“The key issue is that the buses that are used to transport children are not meant to ferry young and impressionable minds,” Edelmann told Khaleej Times.
“It’s imperative that we understand which kind of bus was used (in Ajman). Strict rules are in place for school buses that are used as a mode of conveyance for pupils,” he added.
He cited the 2019 incident in Dubai to underscore his point.
“The bus, which was involved in the 2019 incident, was again not meant to transport school children. It was a normal and regular bus, and didn’t have technical equipment to monitor. To make matters worse, the driver was not trained to drive a school bus. School buses have trained drivers and that’s nonnegotiable,” he said.
Edelmann felt that educational organisations could work in partnership with STS and Emirates Transport to ensure proper buses could be deployed to ferry pupils and safeguard their lives.
“All the school buses are lying idle and gathering dust owing to the raging Covid-19 pandemic. It’s easy to reach out to school bus operators such as STS and Emirates Transport and work out a foolproof mechanism,” he said.
“Though technology is an important factor, the driver is the key human element, who must ensure not a single child is left behind in the vehicle at the end of each trip,” he added.