Concerned parents, a principal and now the local MP are calling into question the safety of a school bus stop on a busy Nelson highway, along with the Ministry of Education’s “disappointing” response.
Local parents Miriam Woon and Allison Daughtrey both have children as young as 12 who travel from Todds Valley to attend school in Nelson city.
In the morning, the bus picks them up on SH 6 heading into Nelson, a perfectly safe stop according to the pair. However, in the afternoon, the bus pulls into a stop on the opposite side of the highway, leaving students to run across the highway – a stretch of road that is in an 80kmh speed zone.
The pair say the intersection is not safe for children to cross, claiming that visibility of cars coming from the direction of the Glen is well outside Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency’s safety guidelines.
“Since the end of January, there’s been a couple of near misses where kids are stuck in the middle of the road,” Miriam says.
The pair say they believe there is a simple solution - letting the children stay on the bus, heading to the Glen, before being dropped off on the safe side of the road when the bus returns to Nelson.
But the Ministry of Education (MOE) says the route ceases at the Glen, so that is not possible.
“We design our school bus routes based on the locations of the eligible students, in conjunction with our route design principles. One of the key principles is that buses generally only travel as far as the fourth furthest eligible student on any given road,” says MOE group manager school transport, James Meffan.
James says the bus stop has recently been reviewed by both the school bus provider and the ministry to ensure that it is consistent with Waka Kotahi’s safe siting guidelines and found that it is safe to use.
“Our school bus providers are responsible for selecting suitable bus stop locations along each school bus route. Safety is of paramount importance, so we will not operate a bus stop that cannot be shown to meet Waka Kotahi’s safe siting guidelines.”
Those guidelines state that in an 80kmh speed zone, minimum visibility of the bus when pulled over should be 200m in either direction.
The calculated distance, according to the guidelines, allows drivers to see an object (the bus, a parent’s car or a student on the road) and slow down or brake in time to avoid a collision.
Standing at the intersection of Todd Bush Rd, it’s clear that students, and therefore oncoming cars, cannot see further than roughly 100m, due to vegetation growth on land next to the highway.
“It is the caregiver’s responsibility to ensure their children get to a bus stop safely and are supervised at the bus stop until the bus arrives, and the same in the evening,” James adds.
Nelson Intermediate School principal Di Webb says it’s not the first time the issue around safety has been raised with both the ministry and the bus company contracted to operate the route.
“We raised it last year a couple of times, but we have had the same message and push back given to us,” Di says. “For us it’s a real safety issue for our students crossing the road there.”
Nelson MP Rachel Boyack has also stepped in, agreeing that the site is not safe.
“It’s a blind corner, 80kmh, we’ve just witnessed cars come past while the bus was stationed here, they’re supposed to drop to 20kmh, they don’t.
“I think it’s just a recipe for disaster, which is concerning when there’s such a simple solution.
“Even if [the children] do make a good choice, they can’t actually see well enough to know if there’s going to be a car coming, there’s no median barrier in the middle and there’s nowhere for them to stop in the middle and wait, so there’s just so much risk.”
The four women will push the ministry for change.
