DAMMAM, 29 April 2004 — A nine-year-old International Indian School student was crushed to death in front of the school gate in Rakah yesterday morning.
The Class IV student, Muhammad Hamzah, was from Jaipur; his father, an employee of a construction and contracting company, was recently transferred from Riyadh to Dammam.
According to eyewitnesses, the school bus arrived at the boys’ section gate at 6.40 a.m. Hamzah was the last to get off the bus. Before he was completely out, the driver closed the bus’ automatic door and the bus began to move. Hamzah’s hand got stuck in the door and he was dragged for a few meters. He then fell under the rear wheels of the bus and was killed instantly. The police were called and when they arrived, the driver was arrested.
A colleague of Hamzah’s father, Muhammad Zahid of Lahore, told Arab News that Hamzah disliked traveling on the bus because it was poorly maintained and because the driver was rude. His parents had promised to make alternative arrangements from Saturday and so convinced their son to go by bus once more.
Many parents allege that the accident was the result of the driver’s complete negligence and apathy of the school authorities and the Traffic Department. One question which arises is why this particular bus did not have a conductor while most others do.
The Saudi Arabian Transport Company (SAPTCO) has a number of contracts for the transport of schoolchildren. Nearly 6,000 students are carried by 72 SAPTCO buses everyday. Parents have complained about the erratic SAPTCO service as well as the behavior of some drivers. In turn, the school has complained to SAPTCO but without any result.
In their rush to deliver the students to school on time, the drivers travel at high speed and many people in the neighborhood of the school have lodged complaints with school authorities.
Parents say that the school desperately needs a traffic signal at the intersection. School authorities say that they have made a request to the Dammam municipality which has refused to install a traffic signal on the grounds that the school could do so at its own expense.
Traffic police are absent from the area during the heavy traffic in the morning and the afternoon. Parents have been saying that the presence of traffic police would considerably improve the situation. If precautions were taken, such tragedies would not be repeated.
There have been similar accidents at the Indian schools in Riyadh and Jeddah.
