Amidst the uproar over safety norms in schools, autos, vans, and buses, a video from Pune showed a school van jumping a signal and cutting across all vehicles crossing the intersection at a green signal in Kothrud.
In the video, one can see the van driver at the signal jumping the light as vehicles pass by at a very narrow distance.
The user who posted it on X wrote, "School van jumps signals to cut across all the vehicles crossing the intersection at a green signal. It's just a paid job for the driver, but these are the lives of the kids at stake for parents."
He also shared the van's registration number and appealed to the police to take action.
Safety of students
Earlier this month, two nursery students fell from an overcrowded school van in Ambernath, injuring one.
After the incident, discussion on safety in school autos, vans and bus started.
Auto-rickshaws being overloaded with students have raised serious safety concerns among parents and young children in Pune city.
Despite repeated warnings and guidelines by the Regional Transport Office (RTO), many private school auto-rickshaw and van drivers continue to flout rules with impunity, putting the lives of children at constant risk.
Expressing anguish while speaking to the Free Press Journal (FPJ), Sudha Goswami, a parent, said, “It is not uncommon to spot auto-rickshaws carrying 10 to 15 children when it is meant for a maximum of four to six passengers. This is like gambling with the life of our child.”
Echoing similar sentiments, another parent from Baner, Ramesh Chavan, expressed, “We have complained multiple times, but there is no visible action. For our student, I pay Rs1,600 per month. We are forced to send him in an auto-rickshaw because it is cheaper than school vans. But the RTO is sleeping, and the drivers are fearless. It feels like rules exist only on paper.”
While RTO Pune has recently issued a notice regarding the rules to be followed by school drivers and mandatory safety standards, enforcement is still lacking.
