In a first step towards student safety, the Chinese government has put in place a number of measures that will mandate seat belts, require the use of black boxes and paint the vehicles yellow like those in North America.

On July 1, China’s 100 million primary students will begin riding buses that mirror those American students board every morning. The recent move has been attributed to the rising number of accidents involving school vehicles, which vary greatly throughout the region.

The new regulations will include mandatory seat belts, though from news reports it was unclear if that meant the two-point lap belt or three-point lap/shoulder belt variety. School buses will also be equipped with ‘black boxes’ to record speed, travel time and distance; and the presence of teachers on each bus to help guarantee student safety.

“School buses used to lack a unified standard. It is usually difficult to distinguish them from other vehicles and therefore harder to ensure their safety when they are transporting students on the road,” said Jin Qiang, a teacher in charge of school buses of Beijing’s Shijia Primary School, during an interview with China’s Mirror Evening News.

Currently, China does not regulate primary school buses and a number of different types of vehicles are employed throughout the country, especially in more rural areas that are harder to monitor. The new rule will also attempt to homogenize school transportation by outlawing double-decker or articulated buses and will now stipulate that all school buses be painted yellow.

At this writing, it remained unclear to what vehicle construction standards the school buses would be held.