Finger-pointing officials still clueless on fatal bus crashes!

TRANSIT finds it unbelievable for a government official to indirectly deflect the responsibility of bus accidents such as the recent Genting Sempah bus crash which killed 7 people, mostly teenagers, squarely on the bus drivers, and even on the end-users!

The days following the accident have seen several eye-catching news popping out from the mainstream media. The eye-popping news reveals glaring statements from the driver, who claimed that due to past motorbike accident he can only drive with one hand, that out of life desperation as a physically-challenged breadwinner he took a desperate offer from a tour bus operator with no insurance scheme, in the light of the tight labor supply for bus drivers (as illustrated by this opinion piece in the Star today), that his employer knew he was blacklisted by JPJ and has no valid driving license, and that the brakes were not working!

The most absurd news of all: After several days, CVLB has yet to solve the mystery of who really owns the ill-fated bus!!!

Why does the Ministry of Transport allow this to happen, right under its very own nostrils!

Deputy Education Minister Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi was reported in the news to call for emergency motion in the Parliament on the recent bus crashes which killed so many young people. Hey, that might be brilliant, until you read further on the political maverick’s statements, which calls for ‘death penalty’ for bus drivers behind fatal accidents, and put the responsibility of background check works on customers who pay to use the offerred buses. When other governments have invested in safety and quality audit systems, universal wire rope safety barriers, safer bus chassis standards, speed limiters, passenger restraint systems and even side airbags, ours can’t even figure out who the real owner of potentially-hazardous buses currently running on our roads!

This blame-shifting game IS the reason why incidents of bus crashes have never been properly investigated and followed-up (very much illustrated by the Malay proverb ‘hot-hot chicken shit’), and instead we have officials cuckoo-ing around, not even knowing which is which in the whole chicken-and-egg chain of events (please, please pardon the puns!).