Wanting school pupils to be safe and be seen was the driver for a joint Police, council and local schools road safety initiative in the Eastern Waikato.
Matamata-Piako Police Education Officer, Senior Constable Dianne Reade Becker, was overseas when a student was tragically run down after hopping of a school bus near Matamata last year.
"To return and find out a student in my patch had been killed was tragic. I'd come down from Auckland and one of the first things I noticed was all the school kids standing on the side of rural roads waiting for school buses and I thought something needed to be done.
"Before the student's death I'd been looking at the feasibility of getting hi-vis vests for rural bus students and discussed it with local school principles and Eastern Waikato Road safety Coordinator, Ingrid Le Fevre."
Following the Matamata tragedy there was real determination among all involved to minimise the risk of any repeats.
"When community road safety funding became available we thought this would be a good opportunity to kick-start our project, I worked with Ingrid to put our proposal together and our application for the funding was subsequently granted.
Initially we're getting the vests to the schools who immediately got on board but now other schools have seen them in use they're wanting to come onboard and we're working to push the initiative further out as funding and resources allow, the priority after all is keeping our kids safe."
And the vests are proving their worth already with one school quick to highlight their value.
"Last week I received a card from Tauhei Combined School who issued the vests prior to the worst day of fog this winter. It says "To the Morrinsville Police - thank you for sponsoring the bright fluro vests. All the children at our school wear one so we can be safely seen travelling to and from school.
"We felt safe this morning as it was very foggy and the bus driver could see us clearly on the side of the road. A big thank you from Tauhei Combined School."
Approx 1,000 vests are being issued to students from 15 schools in the Morrinsville/ Matamata area and other schools will be allocated more as resources and funding permits.
For further information please contact Dianne Police at the Morrinsville Police Station on
07- 889-3953
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