By Irishexaminer.com,Jess Casey, Education Correspondent

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Drivers in the fleet met last week to discuss their growing concerns about children not waiting for buses to depart in order to get a clear view of oncoming traffic before crossing the road.

“It’s a concern that all our drivers have,” Mr Kavanagh said. “We as a company have it instilled into all our drivers that you have to keep telling the kids ‘cross when the vehicle has moved away’.

“The bus isn’t gone maybe two or three seconds away from the stop, and they are out across the back as well, instead of waiting that extra 10 seconds. That’s all it would take, to give them a clear view of the road.

You have kids getting off, and all they’re doing is running straight across the front of the vehicle.

“As well as that, you have parents who may be waiting on the other side of the road for their kids, beckoning them across in front of the bus.”

The message they are trying to get through to kids is that when they get off the vehicle, they stand and wait for the vehicle to move off, he said.

The company operates a fleet of 38 school buses on rural routes on behalf of Bus Éireann and the Department of Education.

As a lot of the buses operate on rural routes, often the road will be the same size as the bus, so other vehicles can’t overtake while children get off the bus.

“At the same time, if a kid gets off the bus, or maybe two or three of them at the same time, and they cross the front of the vehicle, and one of them falls, the bus driver can’t see them.

“Whereas, if you stand in at the verge, let the bus pass away, give it maybe 10 seconds and then cross. It’s to get that message into their minds.”

He stressed that while the buses in his fleet have a very good bus inspector, parents and teachers should regularly discuss the importance of road safety with students.

He said a national road safety education campaign, rolled out by the Department of Education or Bus Éireann, would help to get the message through to children and their parents.

“It needs to be put out there, the dangers of it. I think they just need to be a little bit more concerned about this issue.”

There have been accidents before, he added. “Not to us, thanks be to God, but it has happened to school children where they have been knocked down by cars.”

A spokesman for the Department of Education said it welcomes any enhancement to the safety of children travelling to and from school. “The safety and well-being of pupils availing of the School Transport Scheme remains a top priority.”

It regularly engages with the Road Safety Authority (RSA), which has statutory responsibility for road safety, and with Bus Éireann, which manages the day-to-day operation of the scheme on behalf of the department, he added.