A Durban school transporter, Jerusha Gopal, drove away in a new Toyota Quantum for her efforts in ensuring safety, while on the roads and transporting children.
Wrapping up Transport Month commemorated in October, the eThekwini Transport Authority’s road safety branch hosted the “Safe to School, Safe to Home” scholar transport awards ceremony at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre on Wednesday.
Gopal was among four finalists who recorded no transgressions, while transporting pupils over the monitoring period during operating hours.
The eThekwini Municipality, in a statement said the city continued to actively promote the safe transportation of school pupils by scholar transport drivers through the Safe to School, Safe to Home Scholar Transport Programme.
“The programme initially trained 128 drivers. However, only 74 were selected for the five-day road safety workshop. The remaining 54 drivers were disqualified due to non-compliant vehicles.”
The eThekwini Transport Authority partnered with Global Road Safety Partnership, Toyota South Africa Limited, Netstar, Afrofleet and other key stakeholders for the project.
Councillor Sifiso Mkhize, deputy chairperson of the city’s human settlements and infrastructure committee, said the aim of the Safe to School, Safe to Home Scholar Programme was to contribute to the reduction in death and injury of school children in road crashes en route to and from school.
“It is to also educate drivers on the Children’s Act 38 of 2005, compliance, policies and regulations. The drivers were scored according to the number of transgressions the tracking devices detected during their drives to school and then during the trip home. The transgressions included speeding, harsh acceleration, and harsh braking.”
Suben Moodley, senior vice president for corporate services at Toyota South Africa Motors (Pty) Ltd, praised the city for being the only municipality in the country to roll out this project in addressing the safety of scholars using private transport.
Gopal said winning the vehicle would allow her to transport more pupils to and from school in and around the north of Durban.
“This is a dream come true. I pledge to continue providing safe and reliable transportation service for the pupils, in a new and extra comfortable vehicle. Thank you to the eThekwini Municipality for allowing the scholar transport sector to participate in this scholar safety project.”