In the 4th draft of the Law on Road Traffic Order and Safety, the Ministry of Public Security proposed that "School buses must have warning lights or registered paint colors for identification."
Specifically, Article 46 of the draft Law requires school buses to meet two requirements.
Firstly, ensure technical safety standards and environmental protection according to regulations, have a usage period of no more than 15 years, have warning lights or registered paint color for identification.
Second, cars used to transport primary or preschool students must have age-appropriate seat belts or must have seats appropriate to the age of the students, and the car windows must ensure that the inside of the car can be clearly observed from the outside.
Previously, the 2008 Road Traffic Law did not have specific provisions for school buses.
Talking to VietNamNet reporters about this issue, Mr. Nguyen Van Quyen, Chairman of the Vietnam Automobile Transport Association, said that this content was also included in the draft Road Law chaired by the Ministry of Transport.
“The Vietnam Automobile Transport Association has commented on the regulation on paint color for school buses. Later, in the draft sent to the Ministry of Justice for comments before submitting to the National Assembly, I learned that this content was removed. But recently, this content was transferred to the Law on Traffic Order and Safety,” said Mr. Quyen.
Mr. Quyen wondered, according to the way the draft is written, should each school's school bus have its own color or should the whole country have the same color?
“In my opinion, this content should not be introduced because currently, all transportation service vehicles (including school buses) must ensure many criteria, including installing a camera to monitor the journey. Now, forcing businesses to repaint the color of the vehicles will cost a lot to implement this regulation.
On average, each car costs about 5-6 million VND to repaint. In addition, to meet the requirements for vehicle inspection, the vehicle owner must go to the police to re-register the vehicle. This adds to the cost and time.
Furthermore, if each school registers a separate paint color, there may be a situation where this year the transport company signs a contract with school A, but for many reasons next year does not continue to sign a contract with school A but switches to school B.
“Each school has to change to a different color. If so, it will be very costly. In my opinion, it is unnecessary. Moreover, in the whole country in general, especially in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in particular, there are hundreds of schools, so how can each school have its own paint color? Because it will be the same color. Who will be the one to determine that paint color A has been registered by school B so that other schools do not register that paint color anymore? In the case of requiring each school's school bus to have its own paint color, I think the implementation will be very confusing,” Mr. Quyen expressed.
In the case of requiring school buses across the country to use the same paint color, the Chairman of the Vietnam Automobile Transport Association also wonders what the management goal is.
“School buses must meet the following criteria: they can be seen from the outside; the driver must have a number of years of experience; the person picking up and dropping off the students must guide them on and off according to regulations; there must be a check procedure before closing the vehicle door; there must be a camera connected to the management agency, etc. In particular, the person picking up the children must check the number of students before entering the parking lot. In my opinion, these are the important issues and have been regulated. Now we just need to legislate them to enforce them more strictly.
Regulations on paint color only make sense when school buses have priority and other vehicles give way... However, if this content is passed, the cost of implementation will not be small and the management goal is unclear. Therefore, I think that regulating paint color for school buses is unnecessary," Mr. Quyen expressed.
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