Say a prayer before getting on the bus...

[ncr]

A good commentary from the Bangkok Post (Wednesday 25 May 2005) on BMTA and the concessionaries.... As I expect the direct link (http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/25May2005_news35.php) to be broken soon, let me paste it in its entirety:

COMMENTARY

Say a prayer before getting on the bus

Saritdet Marukatat

Who's next? For all users of the public bus system in Bangkok and the suburbs, from office workers to students, this is the undesirable question they ask themselves every morning before leaving home.

Every time they get on the bus and pay the fare, they expect good, reliable and safe service from the operator in return. But in reality, what many get is not up to expectations, if not downright hair-raising. Hence it is not surprising that bus commuters always cry foul at the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority, the state enterprise under the Transport Ministry which runs the service and at the same time grants private firms concessions on some routes.

Given that accidents involving buses happen regularly, it is certain that customers' complaints never reach BMTA officials, or that the agency simply turns a blind eye to what occurs.

If BMTA officials cared about passengers, new tragedies would not happen. The latest victim was Issriyaporn Hongapichotesakul, a third-year student at Bangkok University, who fell and was run over while getting on Bus No 528 at the stop in front of Major Cineplex Ratchayothin on May 14. The driver said he was closing the doors and did not realise a passenger was there. The tragedy prompted BMTA chief Poksak Sethabutr to order 63 private operators working with the agency to draw up a plan on how to improve the service. And they must send it to him ''as soon as possible''. The order came with the threat that concessions would be rescinded from any private firm whose improvement plans fail to satisfy the BMTA.

Nobody is excited about this. Indeed, the call sounds familiar to bus riders who see nothing new in it. A warning always comes after an accident. For a while after that, everything goes back to square one, as if nothing had happened _ until there is another accident. This vicious cycle keeps repeating itself.

The public heard the same thing after a similar accident on Sept 14 last year. That was when Piyathida Chotimanas, a fourth-year student at Assumption University, fell off Bus No 207 while boarding, on Ramkhamhaeng road. She was treated under intensive care for a week before succumbing to severe brain injuries.

In 2002, Bus No 1141 killed seven people at Bang Na intersection. The accident occurred because the driver was racing with another bus to pick up passengers. He lost control and the bus veered across to the other side of the road.

And certainly, the latest accident on May 14 will not be the last one.

What the BMTA worries about is not the safety and satisfaction of its customers. Officials are preoccupied with the plan to receive an ISO 9001:2000 qualification on all 108 bus routes the BMTA operates. It is encouraging to say that the service provided by BMTA buses is getting better as a result of that. And this is good for passengers.

But there are another 63 routes operated by private firms. And therein lies the problem. The BMTA, as a regulator, has failed to monitor and use its muscle to make sure private buses offer the same standard of service as the BMTA to the paying public. What passengers get from most private buses is: a vehicle in an abysmal state, reckless driving by the person behind the wheel, and sometimes ruthless behaviour by the conductor. The problem gets even worse when it comes to the minibuses painted green, because of the way they run and treat customers.

Blaming the BMTA alone is not fair. The ministry, including Transport Minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit, must take most of the responsibility. The ministry seems to misplace its priority by trying to find ways to end the loss-making operation, including a warning to slash subsidies. What it should do before anything else is to make the BMTA work efficiently and safely for the public.

It should make sure that all buses carrying the BMTA logo _ including the private ones _ give passengers better treatment and improve safety standards. Passengers are fed up hearing about the BMTA's threats to bus operators. What they wonder is how many more passengers will be killed before the agency and ministry get serious about improvements.

Saritdet Marukatat is Deputy News Editor, Bangkok Post

[GWR]

And say a prayer just to be on the same road as a bus!

Picture this. Stationary car in the middle of a busy road waiting to turn right. Two buses racing down the hill towards him abreast and frantically hooting their horns for the car to clear the road for their antics. (The same route everyday obviously wears a bit thing to the average speed freak.) But the car is blocked from moving either way by other moving vehicles. Just as the car occupants think they are going to die, a space in the traffic allows the buses to pass by on either side of him; just squeezing past other oncoming vehicles. This happens every day on the Hat-Yai to Songkhla route. It's obvious that the famous company concerned have the traffic commissioners completely by the nuts. After decades of killing their own passengers, other roadusers & pedestrians; they're still regularly getting away with flat-out murder. By all accounts, they drove the more careful companies off the road years ago; and doubtless they're already putting a few spanners in the works of any sensible local transit projects.

[pong]

there may well be 63 private BMTAconcessionaires (they change by the day, splitting and grouping), but they run far more as that nr of lines, in fact many more as the greenstriped BMTA itself. Do not have my list here at hand, but I would say some 150 private and BMTA now less as 100 (counting the 'normal 1-207, with gaps and the all AC 501-547, forgetting the Microbus (never hear much about accidents from them, but their nrs. are dwindling) and the .10.000 small minibuses/vans, and certainly not the 100s of old, remaining cowboy-operated green small minibuses.

[Yappofloyd]

A few thoughts on this;

1) Obviously it all stems from a lax regulatory and enforcement environment,
2) endemic corruption by compliance authorities undermines attempts to redress such problems,
3) systemic lax road safety attitudes in society where unsafe driving is tolerated, if not encourage esp. by bus companies in order to maximise turn around times of buses,
4) poor planning at bus stops and on roads maximise the opportunity for bus users and pedestrians to be struck (let along the fact that a bus can stop about 6 times at one stop!),
5) a lack of a proper civil liability laws (payouts to thais always seem to be very low) plus little chance of criminal liability for directors/managers of companies when death or serious injury occurs.

As no thai decision makers, or their family, take buses this situation is allowed to be unresolved which is very unfortunate given the good bus stock (intercity) and cheap prices. Unfortunately it will probably take a few accidents involving the deaths of tourists, esp. farang, before the local and intercity buses have to adhere to some safety standards.

Perhaps there are cultural factors at play as well in respect of 'buddhist fatalism' and not wanting to confront or make conflict in resolving some issues. I worked in Afghanistan all last year and was surprised that Afghans are so fatalistic when it comes to death (given the last 25yrs there perhaps hardly surprising). I wouldn't suggest that such fatalism is as strong here but the tolerating lax safety should have some limits.

The blunt fact seems to be that there is an attitude within the bus comp.s and authorities responsible that thais lives are expendable (unless of course your important or rich) when it comes to bus safety.

[GWR]

Very valid comments.

The incident below involved a truck, but it might just as easily have involved a bus. Something similar happened to someone who fell under a bus in bangkok recently. The conductor told the driver to 'go', because the girl was 'already dead. NOT SO!

A girl was run over by a truck on the Mittrapharp (Friendship) Highway a few years back. The truck ran back over her twice in an effort to kill her. I wouldn't like to say whether the motive was to put her out of her misery, get rid of a witness or a combination of both. She didn't die, but will be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.

It's almost impossible for her to be allowed to do something meaningful with her life. Society wishes to condemn her to a life of watching TV.

[ncr]

It's almost impossible for her to be allowed to do something meaningful with her life. Society wishes to condemn her to a life of watching TV.And that's far worse than the death sentence or rotting in a prison cell for the rest of your life, as far as I am concerned. How long until your brain will liquefy and you become a driveling, mindless zombie?

(In order to clarify: I am talking about Thai TV here. I've long been contemplating posting a rant about it, but I realized any attempt would be futile, as words don't suffice to describe its horrors.......)

Actually the truck driver should be codemned to this terrible punishment. :eek:

[GWR]

They punish the innocent for just 'being there', in the way of the guilty. (But of course, they are not guilty; their kharma has just had a slightly off-day.)

It's partly a case of 'don't sweat the small stuff'. You are free to ride around half-asleep yakking on your mobile, smoking a fag, with five other folks on the MC & a poodle, throwing your trash everywhere and swerving all over the road. You are not free to gain any redress from anyone even slightly more powerful than you, when they stomp all over you with the same degree of abandoned carelessness.

[Yappofloyd]

She didn't die, but will be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.

It's almost impossible for her to be allowed to do something meaningful with her life. Society wishes to condemn her to a life of watching TV.

Yes for all the empathetic ethos that is mean't to exist in this part of the world the fact is that if your disabled your on the scrap heap! Just take the simple fact of attempting to get around BKK in a wheelchair.

Sometimes as I negotiate my way around the so called footpaths in BKK, and other Thai cities, and dodge vehicles that never give way to me, I fanticise about having a few key decisions makers/urban planners strapped into a wheelchair, or loaded up with a pram, for a few weeks and told to get around on foot....

[Yappofloyd]

An unusually good Post editorial with reflecting much of the sentiments posted earlier. The last sentence is particulalry pertainent.

EDITORIAL Children pay the price of idiocy (BKK Post 25/06/05)

Tuesday's heartrending tragedy in which two kindergarten pupils died and 20 others were badly injured when their overloaded and antiquated school vehicle careened off the road in Phayao province, was but the latest in a long chain of highway horrors The driver was probably the only person with the full knowledge of what happened and he did not survive the accident. There is speculation that the van, which had been converted to a school bus, swerved to avoid an oncoming heavy truck or just simply fell apart because of its age and poor condition. Whatever the cause, there was clearly a degree of negligence involved.

In all likelihood, this constitutes a repetition of the same old troubling pattern which characterises most fatal road accidents in this country and that is careless and reckless driving in unsafe vehicles.

Improvements in safety standards of school buses would certainly help reduce the fatality rate of students whenever these vehicles are involved in a major accident. An equally serious problem is the lack of proper driver education for bus and truck drivers who have been blamed for the worst traffic violations. This has long been promised but there are still no signs of the plans taking shape to set up defensive driving schools throughout the country and introduce compulsory driving courses. These would teach drivers the rudiments of safe driving. They would learn that the base which supports all other considerations of safe driving is courtesy and consideration for other road users, regardless of the size of their vehicle. If drivers of regular and public service vehicles cannot understand the value of courtesy and consideration, they are lost before they start. The compulsory lessons need to drive home the principle of cause and effect. If a driver passes on a curve or hill (the cause), they are likely to have a head-on collision (the effect). Forget all about might equalling right. That's the law of the jungle.

There has always been talk about tightening up on the issuance of driving licences for public transport and follow-up driving tests for truck and bus drivers. This is heard every time a fatal accident occurs involving a bus or a truck. Tragically, little action results from all the talk and the matter quickly fades from memory as soon as the public outcry has subsided.

Road accidents have taken place so often that many among us may take them for granted as something which is unavoidable. Pictures of a mangled car, pick-up or bus, the lifeless bodies wrapped in white cloth and pain and agony registered on the faces of relatives and other loved ones are all too familiar.

But without decisive action, such appalling events will just keep on repeating themselves with the dead being reduced to mere statistics. Too many people have died unnecessarily. And most disturbing of all is the fact that reckless drivers are still allowed to rule the streets and pose as great a threat as ever.

One effective training technique is for the police to videotape the actions of bad drivers and then present them with the video evidence of their misdemeanours. It is only when they watch their behaviour that drivers actually realise how great a hazard they pose to other road users. Without this evidence, most consider the other person or someone else to be the danger. This can be more effective than fines.

In the final analysis, only concerted action by the government, with carefully thought-out legislation, can make a difference. Rarely in the past have ministers and their senior advisers dealt directly with the consequences of the ignorance of drivers and the resulting chaos and heartache that their shortcomings can cause.

Perhaps if they were not shielded from reality behind the tinted windows of their chauffeur-driven limousines, and further isolated by a police escort, they would gain a greater understanding of the problem.

[GWR]

Having forgotten to perform the following quick maintainence chore on truck brakes myself on a few occasions, I have some sympathy. But I suspect that he had already been alerted to his earlier mistake by some problem. It usually takes a few days for water levels to build up to a dangerous extent, but I suppose it might be less in a very humid environment: -

25 injured when city bus crashes into shop houses


Twenty-five people were injured, after a city bus going downhill from the Rama III Bridge failed to brake and thus crashed into a roadside commercial building in Bang Bang Kho Laem district Friday morning, police said.

During morning rush hours, the number 163 (Buddhamonthol 4 - Huai Kwang) bus with nearly 100 passengers onboard rammed into a small restaurant and a tailor shop on Charoenkrung Road.

Bus driver Somporn Pharichai, 41, told police that he had checked the vehicle earlier but forgot to release water from the brake system's air pump, so he did it near the Tha Phra intersection and the brake was still working alright then.

Going downhill from the bridge, the driver said he realised the brake was not working, thus tried to steer the bus to eventually stop by itself to avoid accident. But the bus was cut in front by a taxi, thus Somporn pulled the steer wheel to the side to avoid hitting the taxi and collided with the building, he said.

The Nation