Earlier this week, on 30 November, the municipal website of the Basque Country’s largest city, Bilbao, informed that a campaign will be carried out by the local police with the aim of checking the condition of the school transport vehicles that operate on the urban streets. This initiative has a regular character, as part of the regional Strategic Plan for Road Safety and Safe Mobility and is previewed to go until February of 2021.
Children’s safety should be paramount
It is well known that in order to provide safer mobility, there are several different factors that need attention. Apart from building reliable and smart road infrastructure and signalling, the condition of the vehicles and the drivers is no less essential, and even more so when the issue concerns the daily transportation of children between their homes, schools, day care centres or educational trips.
To that end, the Bilbao Municipal Police will be performing two types of inspections in the following weeks.
The first one consists of verification of the permits and documentation that both the vehicles and drivers are obliged to carry by law. This will also include random breathalyzer tests for the drivers. The second inspection concerns the condition of the vehicles in order to ensure that they provide the best possible safety for their young passengers.
It will also be checked if the vehicles make all of the scheduled stops along the routes. In case of inconsistencies, warnings and fines will be meted out, although the authorities were happy to report that during last year’s campaign not a single violation had been logged.
All of the data that is collected each year is recorded into tables for the purposes of statistical management, such as comparison to different indicators and variables.
Source: TheMayor.EU
