Schoolbus Situation in Primary and Secondary Schools in Sisaket in 2003

Abstract

This study aimed to survey school bus information and factors related to accident between the journey to and from school in Mueang municipal area, Sisaket province, 2005. Data was collected from 20 Schools, using questionnaire in 2,718 school children, 556 parents, 20 shool administerstors and 191 school bus drivers during July-August,2005. The data was analyzed by descriptive analysis, chi-square and odds ratio (OR). The result showed that the accident rate was 8.1% (224 cases). Most of them (52.2%) had minor injuries and 6.7% had severe injury. The result showed that students in public, or private school, sex, level of education, residency in or out of the city had statistically significantly with traffic injuries (p<0.05). The odds ratio of traffic injuries in relation to the modes of transportation namely, bicycle, personal motorcycle, paid motorcycle, public modified pickup compared to school bus were 6.69 (95%CI=4.01-11.20) , 6.37(95%CI =2.18-5.71), 4.70(95%CI= 1.52-10.88), 2.71(95%CI = 1.34-5.43) respectively. The parents' opinions suggested that the school bus should be minibus or microbus (27.9%), not older than 10 years (69%), having regular maintainace every 6 month (88.8%), should have safety belt at all seat (92.4%), should have bus hostage (91.4%) and designated colour (85.9%). There were school bus service in 3 private schools. The number of students who used school bus were 26.2% (6054). About 96.7% of school bus drivers were male, 8.9 years in mean of experienced driver, 63.3% were the owner of the schoolbus, 24.1% admitted of smoking, 30.4% alcohlic drinking and 51.1% had chronic illness (diabetes mellitus, hypertension, asthma, etc ). Although there were limited schoolbus services in Mueang municipal area, Sisaket province, the school bus companies and the drivers were not in compliance with the standard and rule of public policy. But accidents occurred less in children riding the school bus than other modes of transportation especially bicycle and motorcycle. The parent and student agreed that they were willing to use school bus service if the quality and management system were improved because school bus services had the benefits not only the safety but also reducing the traffic jam.