Every six months, we read news about school bus accidents in which school going children are killed.
Possible reasons are:
Schools appoint drivers on contract wages, irregular driving hours, lack of special training.
Possible Prevention:
1) Strong regulations and laws do not much work because there is lack of man power to enforce rules.
2) Suits for heavy and exemplary damages against schools under law of tort can have deterrent effect. But then law of tort need to develop liability of schools even for vehicles not directly employed by them. School buses are parts of school. The school management should not be allowed to escape strict liability under law of tort on the ground that school bus was on contract basis.
Haresh Raichura
17/9/14
