Who caused the Camerons bus tragedy

Written by Mariam Mokhtar, Malaysia Chronicle

Twenty-seven passengers were killed after a tour bus hit a divider and overturned while on its down from Cameron Highlands Monday.

Didn't we hope for each accident before this to be the last?

The roll-call, for “bus” tragedies, last decade is frightening: Kuala Lipis (December 2003 with 14 deaths), Nibong Tebal (July 2006, 12), Bukit Gantang (August 2007, 22), Jelapang toll (December 2007, 7), Slim River (January 2008, 3), Rawang (April 2009, 6), Ipoh (December 2009, 10), North-South Expressway - Simpang Ampat (10 October, 13), Genting Sempah (30 October,7)

Where is the political will to make things happen? Malaysians are only too aware, that this bus crash won’t be the last on our roads.

The aftermath of an accident is predictable. There’ll be the customary hand wringing by the authorities, the opportunistic photo-calls by ministers and/or their wives to the bedside of the wounded in hospital, the public outrage about inadequate enforcement, the punishment - jailing the driver and fining the company and the cry for even more laws.

If the authorities are serious about restoring public confidence in road travel, when will they address our abominable work culture and focus on processes, relationship, management and leadership?

Why should we be subjected to ‘new’ regulations, when previous recommendations were never fully implemented?

What happened to the safety programmes of previous dialogues between employer, employee and transport agencies?

In Malaysia, 24 fatalities are recorded daily and road crashes are the single largest cause of death related injury (29%) for children and young people under 20.

In January, the director-general of the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS) penned an article called “Indeed we can all make a difference”.

What progress, if any, was achieved by the measures MIROS planned?

In mid-October, after the Simpang Ampat crash, the Deputy Transport Minister Abdul Rahim Bakri blamed drivers’ bad attitude and indiscipline for most road accidents. He also said that the effort to change the mindset of road-users should not be the sole prerogative of the authorities.

The minister is correct. So when will clean up his own back-yard, first?

Where is the regular and consistent enforcement on a daily basis?

We have, in the run-up to festivities, our ministers or civil-servants giving away freebies at the toll booths, bearing the message to ‘drive safely’.

Some crony has benefited from producing and marketing those gifts, a government department has paid good taxpayer’s money to buy those for distribution to the public, valuable time and money is wasted by the civil-servants/politicians standing at the toll booths for their smiling photos to be taken by the media, when that money could be spent on better dividers, improved road lighting, good road surfacing and enforcement.

When will the policemen or the officers in the Road Transport Department (RTD), fine those who overtake on the inside lane, lane jumpers, those who drive along the hard shoulder, who double park, who park at the roundabout, the works vehicles which reverse onto the highway, the poor lighting and signage of roads undergoing repair, those who perform dangerous road stunts, vehicles with defective lights and those who overtake dangerously?

How long before his government looks into the poor working conditions of bus and lorry drivers and implement safer work practices like having enough rest, or that they are paid a decent wage?

Some bus drivers are only paid RM500 a month and are forced to moonlight or work overtime, to earn a decent income. Some use drugs to keep awake. What happened to minimum pay?

The hotline at the back of commercial vehicles for road-users to phone in or SMS to complain about errant bus-drivers is forever inactive.

And when will we inculcate good driving habits ourselves? We take short cuts. We double park. We reverse onto a main road. We allow our children to drive without a proper driving licence. We allow passengers to sit unbuckled. We do not observe the Highway Code once we have obtained our driving licence. Some of us pay for a driving licence without having to do the test.

We do not report shoddy or corrupt practices. Some of us are guilty of encouraging corruption when we offer a bribe so as to escape prosecution. We keep quiet when we know a friend or relative who drives a car which is neither taxed nor insured. We keep quiet because we are afraid or fear that the person who is acting unlawfully has ‘influence’.

So who is responsible for these accidents? We all are.