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From The Newspaper (2)  Careless

September 30, 2022

"For nursery school buses, safeguard devices will be ruled ~the government hurries to make regulations to prevent accidents of leaving children on a school bus." The article read that after the death of a girl who was left and locked in a school bus, devices like alarm buzzers are being planned to be mandated in order to prevent those types of accidents. It was a sad accident: On September 5, it was a hot day, a three year old child at a nursery school was found dead, suffering from a heatstroke on the school bus, which was parked outside in the parking lot. She was left for 5 hours unnoticed. The police investigation said that the temperature inside of the bus should have been 40℃ or higher. The news said that the girl was found in the front, her clothes were taken off by herself, and that her water canteen that was beside her was empty. A news reporter was reporting about it on TV. The camera focused on a corner that was filled with bunches of flowers and lots of PET bottle drinks standing up. He stated that he had never seen that before, not flowers but the PET bottles, in a huge pile, shining in the sun, crystal clear or yellow or some other color (maybe sports drink and/or tea). He stated that a lot of people came here and laid them down thinking how thirsty the girl was; it looked to be a symbol of their feeling of sorrow and anger toward the school.   "But ..." After the accident, he talked to his colleague, "But, why? Even me, a complete amateur, I would have definitely had a check list at the front of the bus with blanks for the date and time, next to each line, for example, "Checked the bus to make sure every seat is empty", and one's signature. This wasn't his afterthought. This accident wasn't the first time. But, because of this accident, people's sadness and anger was bigger. In July of the previous year, a five year old boy was left locked for 9 hours on a school bus, and died of a heatstroke. The shocking news was broadcasted over and over again, and all nursery schools and kindergartens should have checked their policy and should have implemented safer procedures. But, the tragedy was repeated. The article mentioned a new device being developed. If one turns off the engine and doesn't push the button at the back of the bus, an alarm will ring. At first, he didn't like this idea. It is just carelessness; it's not good to depend on technology; it can prevent people's carefulness. But, he was wrong. Couple of days after he had read the article, he read another news article, "The 5 year old boy's trial in court has started," meaning, last year's July's case. It read that in the first trial, a nursery school teacher, one of the defendants, admitted that it was her fault because she didn't check the backseats and she didn't check the absentees' list. She tearfully apologized. She added that she was distracted by a one-year-old child who was crying hard, and she hurried to the gate taking care of that particular child. Reading this, he thought that jobs in those schools must be harder than he had expected, and he shouldn't say something without knowing everything. On the web, he read an article from a specialist discussing the issue. In South Korea, there had been this type of accident and a new law was carried out in 2018. It required all school buses to set a device that if one doesn't push the button in the back within 3 minutes after turning off the engine, an alarm would sound. A person who didn't check the seats could be charged a fine. The Korean government pays subsidies to cover the costs of implementing such devices into the buses. The specialist introduced that elaborate sensors were invented recently that can sense a rider's movements, even a child sleeping under a blanket or under the seats. He emphasized that it is important to take measures, with the basic premise that human errors will occur.

No. 488




*regulation :規則
*prevent :妨げる、防ぐ
*mandate :命令する、義務付ける
*heatstroke :熱中症
*canteen :水筒
*sorrow :悲しみ
*afterthought :後知恵
*implement :実行する
*defendant :被告人
*absentee :欠席者
*distract :気を取らせる
*premise :前提