“A slap in the face”: Dunsborough families call for better bus resources for the safety of their children

Dunsborough parents are calling for urgent action to be taken on the lack of transport resources as overcrowding forces their children to stand in aisles while hurtling down Caves Road. Hordes of students are being forced onto alternate Transregional bus routes or carpooling rosters, revealing they “feel too scared to ride the bus”. The bus routes follow main roads, including Caves Road and the Busselton Bypass, with speed limits of up to 110 km/h, and families feel more needs to be done to ensure the safety of their children. Students from St Mary Mackillop Catholic College and Cape Naturaliste College have opened up about their experiences on their daily school trips. Austin Marsland, 12, said the bus was always overcrowded and unsafe, with his friend falling over when a driver slammed on the brakes just this week. “Sometimes if you have a two-seater, you have to squish in three or four people on there but then also the older kids just want to sit alone so they put their bag up to block the chair,” Mackillop student Ruby Drmota said. “I know a lot of my friends have been doing carpooling back and forth because they’re too scared and just want to avoid the bus,” Neve Drew of Cape Naturaliste said. Mackillop teacher Jordanna Hall said the current school cohort of 193 students was the largest the school had had. There was a similar number at Cape Naturaliste. She said it was upsetting the State Government was not improving resources with the growing population. “We’ve got more students but they haven’t added more buses to compensate for that; they’ve just used what they had last year,” she said. Mother Jemilah Wright feels the conditions are a “slap in the face” given the buses are a service paid for by families. The disgruntled families have since reached out to Vasse MLA Libby Mettam, who agrees the issue poses a great risk to students. “There is a broader issue of the provision of school buses here that is being touched on... but the immediate issue is quite obviously the danger of overcrowded buses on this rural road and that’s an imminent road safety issue,” she said. Public Transport Authority spokesman David Hynes said services were “meeting the current demands”. He said the PTA had no record of overcrowding on buses. “The licensed capacity of the buses servicing Dunsborough is 76 people with standing passengers,” he said. “Based on SmartRider tags, route 701 servicing Mary Mackillop Catholic College is showing the highest patronage, averaging 57 in the morning and 52 in the afternoon, and Route 700 servicing Cape Naturaliste College is showing the highest patronage, averaging 59 in the morning and 55 in the afternoon.”