DEPARTMENT of Transport Regional Manager, Loddon Mallee, Lidia Slucki steadfastly continues to ignore a contributing factor to the overcrowding aboard the Eaglehawk blue dot school bus service to and from CCB Junortoun.The problem is the size and weight of the students’ compulsory schoolbags.Her response to my complaints about the unsatisfactory conditions aboard that bus is woefully inadequate.I also trust that other parents with kids aboard that bus are quite disturbed by her inference that up to 84 students daily on that service would be acceptable to the department because that’s what the bus manufacturer’s compliance plate allows.I was under the impression that Ms Slucki’s job entailed much more than the ability to read a compliance plate.Perhaps simply removing the seats would also increase capacity by such utilitarian standards – at least the kids may have somewhere to put their bags!I am aware that the department’s monitoring of average student numbers on the blue dot consisted, in part, of Ms Slucki travelling on the bus to and from La Valla on one day.Upon speaking to her, I understood that her assessment of the overall conditions aboard that bus was then, in large part, based upon that brief and limited experience.Despite the department’s denials, there remain significant and obvious risks to the safety of the children aboard that bus, in terms of the culture of bullying and other disruptive behaviours which occur as a result of the necessary jostling for space, and the distraction to the driver. In short, it costs me hundreds of dollars in bus pass money for my two children to be shuttled to and from school in uncomfortable and unsafe conditions every day.They and the other 58 kids on that bus deserve better.Ms Slucki’s, and consequently her department’s, lack of concern regarding, and summary dismissal of these long-standing problems is, to say the very least, disappointing.MICHELLE GOLDSMITH,Eaglehawk