The new school semester that has just begun earlier this week means a lot of things — more traffic congestion, more homework and more family expense. But what parents and society should take more seriously are safety precautions with regards to school transportation services, especially after recent news of a schoolgirl’s death after being left in a schoolvan for eight hours, in Samut Prakan province.
With that in mind, a set of specially-designed stickers have been launched with its core message: “Do not leave me in the vehicle!”. The stickers were introduced last Monday by acting chief of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, Pol Lt Gen Sanit Mahathavorn.
The stickers are available in four different styles and 1,000 of them were printed. They are to be distributed to public drivers, parents and school van drivers so that they can stick them somewhere to remind themselves of the little ones in vehicles.
A collaborative effort between the police and the Ministry of Education, this sticker campaign is also part of the police’s measure to prevent history repeating itself. Just last week a three-year-old girl was left in a school van for eight hours. After the driver dropped the students off at a school, he reportedly failed to check whether there was any of them left in the van. The girl who died was reported to have fallen asleep in the back row of the vehicle.
Two years ago, another three-year-old girl, also from Samut Prakan, died of a swollen brain after being left in a school van for more than five hours. Also in the same year, a four-year-old boy from the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat was left in a school pickup truck under the sun for four hours. According to news reports, the driver did not realise that the boy was asleep in the back.
Assoc Prof Dr Adisak Palitpolkarnpim, head of the Child Safety Promotion and Injury Prevention Research Centre at Ramathibodi Hospital, recently released an article, which serves as a helpful guideline for parents, schools and public drivers alike, when it comes to preventing such incidents.
Dr Adisak recommended that children should not be left in a vehicle parked in the sun. Even if the children are in the vehicle for 30 minutes, they are at risk of dying due to the rapid increase in temperature. Even if the car window is partly lowered, only five or 10 minutes later the temperature will increase to the point that the body cannot tolerate it, leading to acidosis (increased acidity in the blood) and organ failure.
Whether the stickers with warning messages will create a positive impact remains to be seen. While some Internet users praise such an effort, many criticised that it is like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.
This source first appeared on Bangkok Post Lifestyle.