Cierra Siddons спросил 1 год назад
Seatbelt laws have come back into focus after a deadly bus crash in NSW, with several states open to change in a bid to bolster passenger safety. Ten people were killed and dozens more injured on Sunday night when a coach carrying wedding guests tipped over and crashed into a guardrail in the Hunter Valley of NSW. It remains unclear whether the passengers were wearing seatbelts and the cause of the crash is yet to be determined. While stressing he was not specifically commenting on the crash, NSW Premier Chris Minns said it was the driver’s responsibility to ensure passengers wore seatbelts. «If there are seatbelts on buses and coaches in NSW, you are legally responsible to wear them,» he told ABC TV on Tuesday. «It’s always the driver of the vehicle whose responsibility it is to ensure that there’s enforcement with the law and to reinforce the point.» The premier’s office later clarified that it’s the responsibility of the driver to tell passengers to wear a seatbelt but it’s up to passengers to comply. The NSW transport department website states bus drivers are not responsible for ensuring passengers under 16 years old wear their seatbelts. Mr Minns said his government is open to legislative changes to improve safety on buses or penipu coaches if recommended following the police probe. Several of the crash victims were members of the Warrandyte Cricket Club in Melbourne’s northeast. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is yet to speak with his NSW counterpart about the crash but said the southern state stands ready to offer any support to victims and their families. The crash comes less than a month after a truck collided with a bus carrying 46 children from Exford Primary School at nearby Eynesbury in Melbourne’s outer west. None of the students were killed but several sustained traumatic injuries, including partial and complete amputations. Mr Andrews confirmed about 200 of Victoria’s 1200-strong fleet of school buses are not fitted with seatbelts but will be taken off the road in the next year or so. «This is an incident that I’m sure every state and territory will learn from,» he told reporters. Under Victorian law, buses and coaches are not required to have seatbelts unless there is a seat directly facing a front windscreen, but they must be worn if available. Mr Andrews is open to a national approach on bus seatbelts but noted complexities around school, charter and public transport types and the difficulty in striking an agreement with all states and territories. South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas wants to wait for the NSW investigation to finish before committing to regulation changes but said the onus of responsibility for seatbelt use in SA shifts from drivers in cars to passengers on buses. «The obligations on a bus driver are different by virtue of the fact there’s 40 or 50 people on a bus,» he said. Bus and motorbike drivers in Queensland are similarly not responsible for ensuring passengers are restrained, while the same applies to bus drivers in WA and Tasmania for passengers over 16 years. The Tasmanian government will also consider any recommendations that come from the crash. «All bus operators and indeed governments around the nation will be taking great interest in how we can maximise every opportunity to improve passenger safety on buses,» Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff said.
