New school bus signage on the way

Date:

Apr 19, 2017

Queenstown Lakes District Council is supporting a new initiative to remind motorists of the 20km/h speed limit when passing a school bus that has stopped to pick up or drop off children.

New signs are being installed on local school buses in Wanaka and Queenstown that when folded down not only indicate that the bus is carrying students with the traditional yellow SCHOOL text, but also incorporate a “20km when stopped” message.

This combined effort between Go Bus, NZ Police and Queenstown Rotary is being led by QLDC School Travel Plan Coordinator, Kirsty Barr, who is excited to see the roll out of these signs across the district. “We’ve been pushing the ’Either way it’s 20k’ campaign for a few years so it’s good to be able to refresh that message as part of the new school bus signs.

“By law, vehicles must slow to 20km/h on both sides of the road when passing a school bus that has stopped to pick up or drop off children. There is good evidence that there is low national compliance and this is a local initiative to address a lack of awareness around this issue. Go Bus have kindly agreed to install and maintain these signs on their school bus fleet and Queenstown Rotary have also come on board by sourcing funding from the Otago Motor Trust for the project.”

Central Lakes Acting Senior Sergeant Jon Bisset says the police will be making sure motorists keep to the rules. “Police will be closely monitoring and enforcing the 20km/h limit past school buses to ensure that all of our children are kept safe.” He noted that with daylight hours getting shorter as we move into winter, motorists needed to be more vigilant around school bus stops where children were harder to see in the early morning gloom.

ENDS

Media – please contact Kirsty Barr to arrange photo, 0272005111 kirstybarr1@gmail.com.