Parent groups have urged the State Government to act on the findings of an inquiry into school bus safety so that the recommendations can start to be implemented from next year.

The Parliamentary inquiry has called for seatbelts to be fitted on buses in regional and rural areas in a program to be phased in over the next ten years.

But parent groups say 10 years is too long to wait for seat belts to be phased in on country school buses.

Just last month an eight-year-old boy died when the bus he was travelling in collided with a semi trailer in Singleton and he was thrown from a window.

Rachel Sowden from the Parents and Citizens Federation says thousands of students from country areas use school buses every day, often on unsealed roads.

“It impacts 60-thousand students a day travelling on our rural and regional roads and these are the children whose buses go over the urban speed limit.”

She says the proposed timeframe for bringing that in, is by the third term next year.

“And we’d be very much supporting that you know what happens if your bus driver has to stick the brakes on quickly and you’re driving at that speed your children go flying and that’s obviously a big safety concern for us.”

The inquiry also recommended that students be banned from standing in the aisle if the speed limits are over 80-kilometres-an-hour.