Page 178 - Week 02 - Thursday, 25 May 1989
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BUS SERVICE
MR WOOD: I direct my question to the Minister for Housing and Urban Services, and she will appreciate that at least I am an assiduous reader of the newspapers. I refer her to a column on page 3 of the "Canberra Times" today in which it was pointed out that two young children had been left on a major road in our city, apparently by ACTION buses. I would hope that this was not quite as stated. Does she have any information on this matter?
MRS GRASSBY: Yes, I did read that item this morning and I contacted my department. A representative of the bus service checked out the story with Forrest School, where the children were supposed to go. Apparently they had got on the wrong bus, they realised they were on the wrong bus in peak hour traffic, and panicked. The bus driver stopped at the best place he could, gave them directions to go across another two streets to pick up the right bus. The boys got the direction wrong, and ended up on the side of the road, and some very kind person picked them up and took them to school.
A similar incident occurred the day before when a boy who wanted to go to Giralang ended up in Latham. The bus department was very good and made sure that he got to Latham. I have a letter here from the mother of that child saying how wonderful ACTION buses were to get the boy to where he wanted to go.
This points to the importance of the fact that we are about to launch from my department a bus safety campaign by ACTION. This campaign will be important for all schools. It will include a bus safety ramp, and will emphasise the need for travellers to check the bus number and to hail the correct bus. Otherwise passengers will find they are on the wrong bus and halfway to somewhere they do not want to go. This often happens to children. However, my husband once walked out and got on a plane and sat there strapped in very happily. The air hostess said, "Hello, how are you?" and talked for a while. Then she said, "What are you going to Melbourne for?" - he was in Sydney, by the way - and he said, "No, I'm going to Brisbane". She said, "Well, I hate to tell you but this plane is going to Melbourne". So not only do children make mistakes but obviously adults make them, too. ACTION has taken care of the situation.
ROAD CONDITIONS
MS MAHER: We have had some correspondence from some concerned citizens about the condition of the roads around the ACT. I would like to ask the Minister for Housing and Urban Services: what does the Government intend to do to control overloaded and overweight trucks which are damaging our local roads?
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