Research on the Supervision of School Bus Safety

: In the process of the reform of the education system and the promotion of the policy of "removing and merging schools", the number of primary and secondary schools in rural areas has been greatly reduced, the traffic problem of students going to school has become increasingly prominent, and the demand for school buses in my country is increasing. Relevant state departments and local governments have issued policy regulations on school bus safety, but these regulations still have problems to varying degrees and are difficult to implement. Therefore, there is still a great safety hazard in school bus safety. Based on the current situation of school bus safety management in Xuzhou, this paper investigates the promulgation and implementation of Xuzhou’s school bus safety supervision policies, and selects the Xuzhou Fengxian school bus accident as a typical case to explore the problems existing in Xuzhou’s school bus safety supervision, and analyzes the problems in Xuzhou’s school bus safety supervision. On this basis, the countermeasures to improve the safety supervision of school buses in Xuzhou are put forward. In order to improve the problem of school bus safety management in Xuzhou, first of all, the power and responsibility relationship between different subjects should be clarified, and the government should be mainly responsible for the supervision of school bus safety. Secondly, we should increase the support and financial expenditure for school buses, promote the process of school bus laws and regulations, and establish and improve the supervision system and emergency management system.


Introduction
Because school bus carrying objects are mainly minors, it is decided that school bus safety is the focus of the public and the government. On November 16, 2011, an extraordinarily large school bus accident occurred in Zhengning County, Gansu Province. A school bus in a kindergarten with a nuclear load of 9 people and an actual load of 64 people collided with a truck, resulting in 22 deaths and 43 injuries. [1] The influence of this school bus accident was so great that it became a historic event that pushed the State Council to issue the Regulations on the Administration of School Bus Safety. From a theoretical point of view, the "Heinrich Safety Law" points out that for every major accident, there are likely to be 29 minor accidents and 300 accidents that have not yet occurred but have appeared hidden dangers. In the "National Analysis Report on the Overall Situation of Safety Accidents in Primary and Secondary Schools" released for the first time, the survey results showed that 72.32% of the accidents occurred in rural areas, of which traffic accidents accounted for 19.64%. [2] According to the data released by relevant departments, there is an average traffic accident every 41 seconds in China, and about 40 students die in traffic accidents every day. [3] These school bus accidents have sounded the alarm for the supervision of school bus safety in my country: why the school bus that children ride cannot be guaranteed. In a realistic sense, the problem of school bus safety is a new problem in the development of education after the country adjusts the layout of primary and secondary schools. In order to effectively allocate educational resources, the state introduced the policy of "removing schools and merging schools". However, in the process of implementation, the blindly implemented "one size fits all" behavior resulted in a great reduction in the number of primary and secondary schools in rural areas. According to the "Ten-Year Evaluation Report on Rural Education Layout Adjustment" issued by Yang Dongping, Dean of the Education Research Institute, in rural China, in the ten years from 2000 to 2010, almost every hour passed, 4 rural schools disappeared. School. On average, 3 junior high schools, 30 teaching points, and 63 primary schools disappear every day. The result of withdrawing and combining schools is a reduction in the number of schools, which means that children have to go to study far away from home. Children in rural areas are often difficult to walk due to muddy roads in rural areas, and the distance is too long to walk to school alone. School buses create a huge demand. However, due to the low penetration rate of school buses and the lack of management by relevant departments, all kinds of illegal vehicles enter rural areas. If no attention is paid to the solution, the resulting consequences will be unimaginable. Therefore, in order to deeply analyze the problems of school bus safety supervision in Xuzhou, this paper takes the school bus accident in Fengxian County, Xuzhou as the breakthrough point, learns advanced management concepts at home and abroad, and formulates corresponding countermeasures based on the actual situation of "student bus" operation in this area.

Problems in the Safety Supervision of School Buses in Xuzhou
The urban area of Xuzhou is 3,037.3 square kilometers, and the urban area has a population of 3.03 million. According to the survey results of the author's visit, Xuzhou has not purchased school buses that meet the national standards at present, and students' travel methods are mostly customized bus lines, boarding, and parents' pick-up and drop-off. Or students mainly ride bicycles, walks, etc. There are 5 school buses in Tongshan County, 20 in Suining County and more than 10 in Feng County. On December 12, 2011, a school bus at the Central Primary School in Shouxian Town, Fengxian County, Xuzhou, accidentally rolled over and slid into a ditch on the side of the road while dodging a rickshaw. The accident killed 15 students and injured 11 others. . The direct cause of the accident was that the driver of the bus was speeding and taking improper evasive measures, and the driver's driver's license did not match the permitted driving type. At the press conference, the relevant person in charge of the education department admitted that there were problems in supervision, and started rescue compensation. Each student killed in the accident received compensation of more than 502,000 yuan. After the accident, the Fengxian government decided to temporarily suspend all operating school buses in the county for rectification. In the end, the driver was sentenced to seven years in prison, and the deputy county magistrate, the director of the Education Bureau, the deputy director of the Public Security Bureau, and the principal of the Shouxian Town Central Primary School were suspended for inspection. The accident revealed that Xuzhou still has problems in inspection loopholes and ineffective supervision in school bus safety management.

The Main Measures of Xuzhou School Bus Supervision
On May 11, 2012, the Xuzhou Municipal Government issued the "Implementation Opinions on Implementing the State Council's Regulations on School Bus Safety Management and Strengthening the Administration of Traffic Safety for Primary and Secondary School Students" (hereinafter referred to as "Opinions"). The author extracted some typical opinions for analysis: First, in terms of financial subsidies, the financial department is responsible for supporting the operation of public buses and school buses in towns and villages, and "replaces subsidies with awards". A subsidy of 25,000 yuan per vehicle for newly purchased rural buses. According to the author's interview and investigation of Xuzhou Sanbao school bus drivers, the drivers reported that they had never received school bus subsidies. Not only that, but there were also fines. When asked about the reason, the driver said frankly: "The city government does not support the development of school buses and is afraid of taking responsibility. Although the state has issued a document to vigorously develop school buses, school buses are managed by the local government." Documents issued by local governments are oriented to encourage the development of school buses, but their implementation shows the opposite side. The purchase cost of a special school bus that meets the national standard is as high as 40,000 to 500,000 yuan, and the annual maintenance cost of a school bus is as high as 100,000 yuan. The absence of government subsidies makes the private burden increase sharply. At the same time, the school bus market is "black". The phenomenon of arbitrary charges affecting market pricing has squeezed the living space of school bus practitioners. Some drivers admitted that the development of the school bus industry that intends to drive school buses to the end of their life is worrying. Second, in terms of departmental supervision, the document stipulates clear management responsibilities, and implements territorial management and division of labor. [4] During the investigation, it was found that the Xuzhou Education Bureau, the Transportation Bureau, the Safety and Security Department, and the Quality Inspection Department were also responsible for school bus safety issues. The issuance of a school bus permit requires the education department to receive the application materials for its school bus, and then submit it to the public security, traffic and security departments for comments, and then report it to the government at the same level for approval before it can be obtained. The driver of a school went to various departments to apply for a school bus operating license many times, but no unit was willing to sign and issue it. The seemingly legalized school bus actually did not have the corresponding license to operate. Therefore, the school bus driver had to buy all the insurance. The situation has seriously hindered the development of the school bus industry. The author also interviewed the urban management officers patrolling the gate of a primary school: "We are urban management officers, not traffic police. We are only obliged to help maintain the school's traffic order. If there is a school bus traffic problem, we have no law enforcement power and no right to deal with it." From " Anyone can manage" to a situation where "no one cares" when there is a problem, the regulations are like a dead letter, and it is difficult to achieve. The third is the operation of public transportation. Bus stops are prioritized near primary and secondary schools, and bus resources are concentrated to arrange trips to and from students. Compared with the high cost of private school bus rides, studentcustomized bus lines are more economical and can reduce the economic burden of rural families. However, the safety of buses is far less than that of dedicated school buses. Once a traffic accident occurs, the consequences will be disastrous.

The Main Problems Existing in Xuzhou
School Bus Supervision

Government Supervision Is Not in Place
The "Notice on Improving the Management System of Rural Compulsory Education" promulgated by the state clarifies that the compulsory education system implements the model of "local governments are responsible, graded management, and county-based", and the county-level government has the responsibility to ensure the funds for rural compulsory education. [5] It can be seen that the county-level government should bear the educational cost of the compulsory stage, including the transportation cost of students to and from school. However, due to the limited financial strength of the county-level governments, and the fact that the provincial and municipal governments tend to focus their education funds and resources on colleges and universities, the enthusiasm of the township-level governments has been frustrated. Therefore, the boundaries of power and responsibility have to be blurred, and the risks are transferred to the schools and the parents of the students. , Use "elimination of school buses" to solve school bus safety problems, such as buying a school bus without a license plate and leaving it idle, allowing children and parents to solve travel problems on their own. The government does not participate in the purchase of school buses, and many parents sign agreements with private car owners to take their children to school. This phenomenon has also been confirmed by the person in charge of the relevant department. The director of the Xuzhou Education Bureau's Security Office said: "Xuzhou City implements nearby enrollment, and you can directly enter the school in the corresponding area. There is not much demand for school buses in the urban area. At present, Xuzhou There is no school bus operation in the urban area, and most of them use customized bus routes, parents pick up and drop off, etc." This conclusion was also verified in the Fengxian school bus accident. In the school bus accident in Fengxian County, the accident school bus was an agreement used by the owner and the parents of the students, not a special school bus purchased by the school and the government. The official response said that before the incident, there were basically no government-funded school buses among all the vehicles transporting students in Feng County, and most of them were private vehicles. There are 130,000 primary and secondary school students, 110 primary schools, 26 junior high schools, and 8 high schools in the county. The main vehicles for transporting students are coaches, vans chartered by several parents, and private shuttles. [6] The parents of the students sign a pick-up agreement with the car owner, and the government and the school do not directly manage it. At the same time, the Xuzhou municipal government still has shortcomings in the supervision of school buses. In the Fengxian accident, the school bus was verified to carry 50 people. The official said that 47 people were on the school bus at the time of the incident. There are three people in two seats, four people in the three seats on one side, and there are people standing in the aisle, and students are often squeezed to cry." We can't find out how many children took the problem school bus on the day of the incident, but To be sure, overloading is the norm. The school bus in the accident was asked to stop operation because it did not file a record, but after the second day of the suspension, the bus carried students as usual, and the bus reported for approval was the A1 driver's license for driving the school bus, and Hong Xu, the driver who was the temporary substitute on the day, drove as usual. He holds a B2 driver's license and is not qualified to drive a school bus. However, just one month before the school bus accident in Fengxian County, Fengxian County carried out special rectification work on school bus safety throughout the county, and required a "zero tolerance and zero slack" attitude to deal with major safety hazards. Random inspections are carried out on the concentrated road sections that school bus vehicles pass through. [7] Obviously, there are huge loopholes in the supervision of the relevant departments, making an unrecorded school bus and a driver who does not match the permitted driving type become caught. This lack of supervision is not only reflected in the lack of school bus safety supervision, but also in the lack of school bus public service resources. The lack of government supervision makes school bus safety a blank area of supervision.

Parents Do Not Pay Attention
The first is parent pick-up or agreement pick-up. Families with short distances, parents ride bicycles, electric vehicles, drive their children to and from school, or let their children ride their own bikes to and from school. If schools are far away, parents will band together and hire drivers and social vehicles to pick up and drop off their children. For example, in the school bus accident in Fengxian County, local students reached an informal pickup agreement with the bus owner at the price of 650 yuan per person per semester. A similar situation occurred in Sanbao Experimental Primary School in Tongshan County. Each primary school student pays fees ranging from 300-700 yuan according to the distance of residence. There are many drawbacks in signing agreements between parents and school bus drivers, such as difficulty in confirming whether the driver is qualified to drive, whether the operation and management of the school bus is standardized, and how to define the two parties involved in the accident. The second is boarding or renting. Parents choose to let their children live on campus or rent a house near the school to take their children to school, thereby reducing the cost of transportation and avoiding the risk of accidents.
There are many safety hazards in situations such as private car owners contracting to pick up and drop off, and underage students riding bicycles by themselves. The author selected several schools to conduct oral interviews with some students and parents during school hours: Li, a first-year junior high school student in Xuzhou City: " Once I was rushing to school on my bike, I accidentally ran a red light and almost hit a car. Fortunately, the driver responded quickly, otherwise I couldn't imagine what would happen next." Xuzhou City The mother of Zhang, the second grader of Xiu Middle School, said: "Xuzhou City implements nearby enrollment. Our daughter attends the school closest to home, and it takes about ten minutes to walk there. Usually adults will pick them up if they are free, and let them go if they are not. Children can walk by themselves." Teacher Zhang from the Central Primary School in Shouxian Town, Fengxian County: "The road from the village to the town is not easy to walk. There is a dirt road, which is difficult to walk when it rains. The government should increase education and road infrastructure. We need to invest in repairing the roads in the village and assigning school buses, so that children can enjoy highquality education while avoiding the tragedy of school buses." The author learned through interviews with relevant subjects that the government's insufficient investment has made school bus operation and maintenance high. The cost is unsustainable. After the school is equipped with school buses to run on the road, the follow-up management responsibility is heavy. Once a problem occurs, both the school and the person in charge of the relevant department will be severely punished, and the policies issued by the local government are mostly to encourage the purchase of school buses. Nonmandatory purchases, lack of strong enforcement measures, and various factors have contributed to the low penetration rate of school buses. In addition, due to the lack of publicity about special school buses, people think that all means of transportation that take students to and from school can be called school buses. Most of the school bus management ideas in our country also stay at the level of "active prevention" and "legal management".

Insufficient Government Support and Investment in School Buses
The government's management of school bus has problems such as lack of effective financial guarantee mechanism and unreasonable way of school bus cost sharing. After the promulgation of the "School Bus Safety Management Regulations", the documents issued by various places have increased the regulations on school bus investment, but most of the funds invested are very limited. Due to the high cost of school bus operation and the unbalanced development between urban and rural areas, more school buses are needed in remote and poor areas, but these areas are often difficult to independently afford the high cost of school bus service.
According to the author's investigation, whether in the "School Bus Safety Management Regulations" promulgated by the state or in the local policies promulgated by Xuzhou, although there is mention of financial subsidies for the purchase of school buses, there is a lack of pre-purchase, operating costs and post-maintenance. and maintenance costs and a set of systematic financial guarantee mechanisms. The cost of school buses is allocated by local finance, and the central government and provincial governments are not responsible for providing financial subsidies. The director of the Security Department of Xuzhou Education Bureau said: "School buses are financed by local governments themselves, and higher-level governments do not allocate funds. Xuzhou's economy is no better than that of southern Jiangsu, and the government's financial resources are limited, so the development of school buses is relatively lagging behind." Unbalanced regional economic development, the purchase, management, operation and maintenance of school buses requires a lot of expenses, which will inevitably limit the quality of school bus service in underdeveloped areas. For example, even if the local government subsidizes the purchase of school buses by county and district units in Xuzhou, it is still a huge challenge to sustain the high costs of school bus management and maintenance in the later period. Drivers who used to have special school buses said that the current business situation of the school bus industry is already in a situation of making ends meet. The purchase of a school bus ranges from 200,000 to 300,000 yuan, which is a lot of money for ordinary families. However, the maintenance costs in the later period are huge, and it is unsustainable to just collect student transportation fees. Therefore, many school bus drivers Opt out of the school bus industry and transfer school buses in 58.com and the second-hand school bus trading group.

Clarify the Responsibilities of Relevant Subjects and Strengthen the Accountability System
School bus safety is related to the future of society. Therefore, it is necessary to speed up the improvement of relevant measures for school bus safety, design an effective system, and establish a comprehensive supervision system to solve safety problems thoroughly. We must have the determination to face the problem and the courage to turn inward. The degree of legalization of administrative responsibility in our country is not high, and the unsound administrative responsibility system has caused the constitutional principle to remain in the form of the situation to a certain extent. The development of school buses is inseparable from the cooperation between the government and education, public security, transportation and other departments. The government should coordinate with various departments to jointly strengthen the safety supervision of school buses. The author suggests that the education sector should take the lead, and the traffic and public security should cooperate. In Xuzhou City, where town and village buses are implemented, the education department should understand the information of students' bus rides, and strictly review the application materials for school buses and customized student buses; the transportation department implements the responsibility of school bus supervision. If the ban is not lifted, they will not be allowed to go on the road; the safety supervision department should conduct regular vehicle safety inspections. In the event of a school bus safety accident, the responsible person in charge of each department will be held accountable for the cause of the accident, and the main responsible person will be dealt with different degrees of "administrative punishment" or "taking the blame and resigning" according to the accident and casualties, as a warning. In addition, it is also necessary to improve the school bus responsibility specification, supporting specifications for various policies, establish and improve the responsibility system for school bus accident prevention and handling emergencies, establish an accountability system, and seriously deal with "absence" and "misplacement" behaviors. The department in question will be held accountable.

Increase Capital Investment in School Buses
As a kind of quasi-public goods, school bus should be included in the government's public financial expenditure for its purchase and operation. In poor and backward rural areas, investing money is the most direct and effective means to solve the school bus problem. First, the government should play a leading role, take responsibility, further increase the capital investment in education in Xuzhou, and include the purchase of school buses in primary and secondary schools and kindergartens into the local government's financial budget. The budget and implementation of school buses must be made public. Every budget and subsidy for each school bus is issued under public supervision to avoid corruption and enrichment, so as to ensure that it can reach the operator as scheduled. Second, a partial tax reduction for school bus operators. For example, the public security department exempts the cost of school bus licenses; the industrial and commercial department exempts personal management fees; the taxation department provides corresponding policy support according to relevant regulations; insurance companies provide the greatest discounts for school buses that purchase commercial vehicle insurance, and establish a green channel for school bus claims. A special person is responsible for claims settlement. Third, open social donation channels. Children are the flowers of the motherland, and all parties in the society have the responsibility to foster the vigorous development of the school bus industry. In addition, the purchase of school buses requires a large amount of funds to operate and maintain, and the local governments with economic backwardness cannot afford all of them. Therefore, the government should take the lead in funding, and parents of students To bear part of the school bus costs, and social donations to raise funds through multiple channels. The government can encourage influential funds to initiate fundraising for school bus safety projects, and encourage individuals and businesses to fundraise for them, so as to solve the problem of funding shortages through multiple channels.

Improve the Multi-Party Supervision System for School Bus Safety
In addition to providing necessary funds and perfect legal guarantees to support the development of school buses, a regulatory system for school buses must also be established. Only by establishing and improving the supervision system can we effectively supervise all parties to act in accordance with the regulations, and crack down on "lazy governance" and "inaction". According to the principle of the unity of the decrees, the executive head responsibility system is implemented, and the heads of the departments in charge are centralized and responsible, so as to prevent the situation where no one is in charge due to political affairs. The essence of social supervision is that citizens exercise the supervision power stipulated in the constitution to supervise government officials and their staff members as the masters. It is of great significance to promote the rationality of government administrative actions. [8] Establish a multi-party supervision platform, and relevant subjects jointly supervise the management of school buses. In order to ensure the effect of performing their duties in an orderly manner, the Xuzhou Municipal Government can set up a school bus supervision platform, and publish the address of the school bus network supervision platform on the school bulletin board, the website of the Education Bureau, etc., to receive information from schools, parents and other social entities. Anonymous suggestions and reports, timely handling of reported problems and giving public feedback.

Improve School Bus Safety Awareness
Safety is no small matter. Students, schools, parents, drivers, and caregivers should all receive school bus safety education. At present, my country pays attention to the cultural knowledge education of primary and middle school students, but ignores safety education. Some parents, drivers and caregivers do not know much about school bus safety due to their cultural limitations. Some parents even acquiesce and condone the overloading of black school buses. Schools should educate them on road safety and explain emergency response knowledge to students. Schools with conditions can organize drills and set up school bus safety days, and invite students, parents, school bus drivers and teachers to participate in the event to improve safety awareness of all parties. At the same time, the school can also hold regular school bus safety symposiums to teach students how to wait for the school bus and the precautions for riding the school bus; school bus drivers should clarify their responsibilities, strengthen their sense of responsibility, establish the concept of "safety first", and constantly strengthen Self-awareness of safety precautions, not overloading and speeding on the road, maintenance and repair of school buses in a timely manner to ensure that students are delivered to their destinations safely; the on-board attendant must carefully check the number of students to avoid suffocation caused by students being left in the car If it is found that students' behaviors affect safety, they should be stopped in time; parents should fully guide their children not to take unlicensed transportation such as black school buses and vans, and report the overloading phenomenon to the education department or the transportation department in time to ensure students' travel to the greatest extent possible. Safety. Publicizing school bus safety education is a long-term and far-reaching task. Relevant departments can formulate rules and regulations to ensure the smooth progress of school bus safety education and publicity activities, and incorporate this into the school assessment program to encourage schools to actively participate in the construction of safety education. Promote the effective development of school bus safety education activities.

Conclusion
Through a comprehensive and in-depth study of the school bus safety supervision in Xuzhou,this paper summarizes the corresponding countermeasures according to the supervision of school bus safety in Xuzhou and the existing problems and reasons. The conclusions are as follows: The analysis made is that there are many imperfections in the relevant safety supervision system, and the lack of financial funds is also one of the main problems school bus drivers, on-board caregivers, parents and students all made careful and meticulous interviews, and finally made a summary based on the current situation of school bus supervision in Xuzhou. The suggestions for existence are to clarify the responsibilities of relevant subjects and strengthen the accountability system, improve the multi-party supervision system for school bus safety, establish a special emergency management mechanism for school bus safety, and enhance school bus safety awareness. Due to the limitations of my research, my understanding of school bus safety supervision is still insufficient. In the future, the research on school bus safety will also deepen with the development of my country's school bus. It is believed that the development of my country's school bus industry will gradually be on the right track.