Having read the editorial about the impact of PSVAR on school services, yet again the law of unintended consequences comes into play in several ways.
We now have children who can’t get the bus to school. What are the alternatives?
Paying on the service bus if there is one, something that is not always available in rural areas; or parents taking children to school by car, thereby increasing road traffic with the resultant increase in congestion. That says nothing of the environmental impact of thousands of extra cars on the roads twice a day.
There’s also the inconvenience to the parents who have to take their children to school.
Becasue of PSVAR the other alternatives are car sharing, or giving the children a school bus provided by one of the multitude of Section 19 minibus operators with all the attendant legal and licensing risks those operations involve.
Many parents’ insurance won’t cover them for taking other people’s children on a regular basis. It ceases to be a social nicety and is then deemed hire and reward.
Roy Gould
