RIYADH: In the wake of rising accidents involving children traveling to school, police arrested a school van driver here who was transporting students in a vehicle that did not have a door.

The driver, an Arab expatriate, had been operating his vehicle to ferry children to and from school with a makeshift door which was not safe for children’s travel.

The arrest was made after the van's picture was posted on social media websites showing risks involved in children’s travel to and from school.

Police apprehended the driver at his home in Al-Rafha district in Riyadh.

According to police, the arrested driver, who is in his forties, will face punishment according to local laws.

Authorities and parents have lately been concerned over risks involved in transporting children to schools after recent reports of reckless school bus drivers.

Early this week, the Education Department here launched an investigation into the death of an 8-year-old boy on a bus on Sunday. Nawaf Al-Sulami apparently had not disembarked from the bus when it arrived at his private school in the Naseem District on Sunday morning. He was found dead in the afternoon.

Last October, Abdul Malik, a third grade pupil, was forgotten in his schoo lbus and died of suffocation. An Asian bus driver was arrested.

The school was permanently shut down by the Education Ministry last December in the wake of accusations that the school administration was negligent.

The department has urged all schools in the city to ensure the arrival and departure of all students in a bid to avoid a similar tragedy in the future.

These incidents in Jeddah are reminiscent of a similar tragedy in 2010 in Dammam when a five-year-old expatriate girl, Fida Haris, died after being left unattended for five hours in a private vehicle in the hot sun outside the International Indian School.