Safer Journeys to School: Consultation on overtaking and passing buses

Overview

Safer Journeys to School: Consultation on Overtaking and Passing Buses

The Department for Infrastructure is consulting on legislative proposals under the Safer Journeys to School programme to improve safety when buses are stopped to allow passengers to get on or off.

Evidence indicates that children may face a heightened risk at the point of boarding or alighting from a bus, and immediately afterwards, particularly where they may need to cross the road and where traffic speed, visibility or road layout increase danger.

The consultation sets out a preferred legislative proposal to prohibit overtaking a stationary bus in clearly defined dangerous circumstances. It also seeks views on further legislative options to address wider risks associated with vehicles passing buses during boarding and alighting, including vehicles travelling in the opposite direction.

Your views will help refine the preferred proposal and inform consideration of the most effective wider approach.

Please note: Responses should not contain personal data relating to you or any other identifiable individual. Where personal data is included, the Department will be unable to consider that response and it will be removed from the consultation dataset.

The consultation document can also be made available in alternative formats on request. Please contact: saferjourneystoschool@infrastructure-ni.gov.uk

Why your views matter

Your views will help the Department for Infrastructure refine the preferred legislative proposal and inform consideration of the most effective wider approach to improving safety when buses are stopped to allow passengers to board or alight.

Road environments, traffic conditions and bus operations vary across Northern Ireland.

Hearing from a wide range of individuals and organisations will help ensure that any legislative measures are clear, proportionate and workable in practice, and that potential impacts or unintended consequences are properly understood.

Responses will be considered alongside further analysis, legal advice and engagement with operational partners before decisions are made on whether and how to proceed.