The first day of the new school term in Shenzhen witnessed a soaring number of vehicles on the road, with over 80,000 more cars during the morning peak hour, Daily Sunshine reported yesterday. Shenzhen traffic police bureau dispatched more than 500 traffic police officers and set up 72 inspection stalls during the morning peak hour to detect illegal school bus operations on Monday. During the inspection, police discovered four school buses breaching traffic rules, with one overloaded with three extra students. The driver was fined for 500 yuan (US$76.6) and was penalized 6 points on his driver’s license. The traffic police mainly inspected the school buses to make sure they had school bus permits, driver’s licenses, mandatory vehicle insurance and driving permits. Also, the inspection checked to see if the school buses were of the two types of buses approved to serve as school buses. Other minor regulations include speeding, overloading and off-standard spraying of logos and signs. The overloaded school bus belonged to Shenghua School in Longgang District. The three extra students were sitting on the back row of the bus without seatbelts while the other kids had their seatbelts fastened, according to Huang Yongchang, a traffic police officer from the Longgang traffic police brigade. The driver, surnamed Fan, said he had been driving for more than 30 years and worked for the school as a driver for two years. It was his first overloading offense, said Fan, who said he miscounted the students because the school decided to replace the original bus with a smaller bus. The head of the safety office for the school, Xiao Tao, said that the school would replace the driver and the on-duty teacher on the bus in order to prevent such a breach from happening again. The Shenzhen traffic police said they would carry out further school bus inspections on a regular basis and is now collecting information on all school buses and drivers. The police would also install GPS devices on the buses for supervision. (Zhang Qian, Liu Qi) | 