Why 20 km/h?
School bus incidents happen on both high and lower speed roads. But the faster a vehicle is travelling, the more likely a child will be killed if hit.
Seventy-five per cent of fatalities from school bus incidents occur on roads with a 100 km/h speed limit. At the legal limit there would be both fewer incidents and less injury.
How you can promote the limit
The more people that know about the speed limit for passing buses that have stopped to let children on and off, the safer your children will be. There are a number of things you can do to help make your community more aware of the limit.
Different ways you can promote the message
Here are a few ideas for promoting the limit in your local community:
- paint a mural on the school bus stop - run a competition for the design
- encourage your school to promote the 20 km/h speed limit each year as part of its road safety policy (or, to adopt a road safety policy that includes annual promotion of the limit)
- write a media release on what you're doing to promote the limit. Contact local radio or newspaper journalists - they may be interested in working with you. Your community's Road Safety Co-ordinator may be able to help you with this
- create flyers on the 20 km/h limit and distribute at school and local events like parent/teacher interviews, field days, fairs and festivals, or slip them under car windscreen wipers
- encourage your school and other community organisations to include road safety tips regularly in their newsletters - provide them with suggested messages
- run a competition in your local paper, eg 'What's the legal speed limit for passing a stationary school bus when children are getting on or off?'
Produce flyers and posters
Create road safety flyers and posters for display in your local community.
Effective flyers:
- have one short key message, eg '20 km/h past a stationary school bus'
- draw the reader's attention quickly
- focus on what's in it for the reader, eg making it safer for the community's children around school buses.
You also need to think about where your posters and flyers will be most effective. Consider:
- household letterboxes
- supermarkets and malls
- under car windscreen wipers
- churches, church halls, school halls
- Citizens Advice Bureau, Plunket rooms, libraries
- local events such as local markets.
Include messages in school newsletters
Here are some messages you can ask your school to put into their newsletters:
- The speed limit for driving past a school bus on either side of the road is 20 km/h when children are getting on and off the bus. Drivers should always keep to the speed limit.
- Children should always wait for the bus on the same side of the road as the bus stop.
- Wait for children on the same side of the road as the bus stop rather than calling out to them to cross the road and come to you.
- Parents should discuss safe behaviour on and around the bus with their children, and model safe practices on buses when they have the opportunity to do so.
- Park your vehicles out of the way of the school bus and children who are catching it.
- Children need to wait quietly for the school bus in the designated place. Stand as far away from the road edge as you can.
[Adapted from Street Talk promotion kit, LTSA, 2003]
