20 Dead in Bus accident

[okow]

Same 'Ol Story....

Blacklisted bus in yet another fatal accident
By IAN MCINTYRE, MUHAMMAD IZANI ZAKARIA and C.A. ZULKIFLE

GUA MUSANG: A blacklisted bus and a sleepy bus driver with outstanding summonses led to yet another crash that killed a Cambodian passenger and seriously injured four others.
The driver of the express bus fled the scene when he realised that one of his 29 passengers had died on the spot after he lost control of the vehicle that skidded and overturned at Km30 of Jalan Kuala Krai-Gua Musang at 1am yesterday as it headed towards Kuala Lumpur.

DSP Faizal Mohamed Ibrahim of the Gua Musang district traffic police inspecting a wrecked Triton express bus which had skidded and overturned at the 30th kilometre of the Jalan Kuala Krai-Gua Musang at 1am yesterday, killing a Cambodian passenger and injuring four others. The bus had been blacklisted and the driver, who fled the scene, had summonses against him.

The roof of the bus caved in and it took rescuers two hours to extricate Punmin @ Benjamin Ali from Cambodia, said state police chief Senior Asst Comm I Datuk Abdul Rahim Hanafi at a press conference.
Punmin was a teacher active in religious schools in the east coast who had entered Malaysia on Saturday, he said.
Initial investigations revealed that the driver had been negligent and was also sleepy.
SAC Abdul Rahim said police were tracking him down.

Concern: Kelantan Wanita Umno chief Datin Wan Hazani Wan Mohd Nor visiting one of the Triton bus accident victims, Hamsah Yusof, at the Gua Musang Hospital yesterday.

The driver has two outstanding summonses in his name while the Triton Express Bus, WFQ 381, has been blacklisted by police after it chalked up nine summonses totalling RM1,920 over five years, a check with the police online summons-checking service revealed.
However, the driver has a valid commercial driver’s licence and has not been blacklisted by the Road Transport Department.
The passengers on the Triton bus said they had urged the driver to take a rest after he revealed to them that he had had only two hours of sleep the night before. The bus left Kota Baru at 9.30pm on Monday with 29 passengers comprising 17 men and 12 women, including three children

 

[sithwarrior]

I hope everyone concerned would seriously look into ways of eliminating this problem once and for all.

 

[ALBundy]

Can someone tell us which is the next bus company to boycott?

 

[David Yong]

Blame it on this month is the Ghost Festival month!

 

[okow]

Another bus crashes on the NSE

IPOH: A bus with 94 outstanding summonses and whose driver has an outstanding warrant of arrest crashed into a trailer at the 362nd kilometre of North-South Expressway near Slim River yesterday.
All 23 passengers were treated for cuts and bruises at Slim River Hospital.
Police said the Konsortium bus driver was speeding and had tried to overtake a trailer.
The bus left Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday at 10.30pm and was on its way to Sitiawan, Perak, when the accident happened at 12.30am.

 

[okow]

Giam Say Khoon
The Sun

The Road Transport Department (RTD)'s Automated Enforcement System (AES), to be launched in October, is doomed to fail, says Social Action Initiative Foundation executive deputy chairman Tan Sri Robert Phang.

"The only way to check the rise in road accidents is effective enforcement. You can have all the laws and systems you want, but if enforcement is ineffective, you will surely fail," he told theSun today. Isnt this what we were posting all along in this thread?

"For years, we have been grappling with the problem of rising number of fatal road accidents involving private and commercial vehicles, especially express buses.

"Isn't it crystal clear that enforcement has been ineffective because it is carried out by various agencies without any synergy or integration.

"There is the RTD, the Commercial Vehicle Licensing Board and the police, all under the purview of different ministries. They have also indirectly admitted that they do not share their database of vehicle owners and drivers.

"How else do you explain the case of the Super Express bus that crashed in Bukit Gantang, killing 21 passengers, could be still on the road after accumulating 19 police summonses since 1991, 79 summonses from the RTD in five years and failed Puspakom inspections four times because of problems with the brakes. Spot On!

"Clearly, the problem is not solely or necessary due to lack of enforcement.

"Without a synergy of all road transport agencies, fatal road accidents involving all vehicles will continue to rise. The AES will fail."

Phang said even the National Registration Department and Economic Planning Unit of the Prime Minister's Department had roles to play in road safety enforcement.

He stressed that he was not trying to dispute RTD's efforts and AES but the department should rope in every stakeholder as well as professional bodies from abroad to come out with a more comprehensive and effective system.

Asked whether the RTD and CVLB should be governed by just one body like Singapore's Land Transport Authority (LTA), Phang said the LTA was able to streamline everything under one roof because it was integrated a long time ago.

"We will not be ready to implement any new system because our agencies are not integrated," he reiterated.

On Monday, Phang held a press conference to invite top officials from the Transport Ministry, RTD and other relevant agencies to participate in a public debate on road accidents.

He said the public debate is meant for the people and the stakeholders to come up with a constructive solution to curb road safety issues.

He said any suggestion will not be heard if the agencies are not present and take part in the debate.

Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Lorry Drivers Association secretary-general Alvin Choong said the association welcomed Phang's idea to hold a public debate with the authorities.

He said in December 2003, a similar public debate was held to discuss about road safety which was also attended by Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who was then the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister.

"The question of inaction must be answered. We are trying to push for integration among all transport agencies to act effectively," he said, adding that the association had contacted Phang to contribute its views for the coming public debate.

 

[xtracooljustin]

http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/8/23/focus/18659691&sec=focus

t’s always someone else’s mess

Rules of Unreality
By DAVIN ARUL

Crime, express bus crashes, security, poor maintenance ? whenever the issue of responsibility comes up, it becomes someone else’s problem.

IN THE wake of the recent express bus crash that claimed 22 lives – and let’s not forget the other crashes that followed – the authorities announced that bus company bosses would be held accountable.

The bosses, on the other hand, said it was not fair to come down on them because the police, Road Transport Department and Commercial Vehicles Licensing Board needed to “get their act together” (The Star, Aug 17).

The suggestion was made that it was unfair to single out the bosses for the actions of their negligent drivers.

The question is, if your employees – in whose hands thousands of people put their lives every day, on the basis of trust, need and/or services rendered for a fee paid to your company – are not your responsibility, then whose are they?

If a company does not take responsibility for the people on its payroll, and does not ensure they are qualified and always fit to do the jobs they are hired for, then who will?

Sure, the authorities can step in and carry out all kinds of tests and screening and checks. But the monitoring must start in the workplace, especially when the nature of the job involves public trust and safety – just like security firms need to be very careful about their hiring and screening policies, and the integrity of their guards.

Do we detect a deft attempt to shove the problem over to someone else’s side of the table here?

It’s not just the bus operators who have been practising tai chi.

Yes, it is probably an insult to the art, not to mention to Jet Li and Datuk Michelle Yeoh (stars of Tai Chi Master, in case the connection eludes you), to use the name to describe this all-too-common practice of pushing responsibility away.

“Practising tai chi” has, in fact, become the de facto Asian equivalent for “passing the buck”, based on the perceived similarity between the “pushing hands” movements of the actual, venerable art and the pantomimed act of shirking responsibility.

Let’s not kid ourselves about our aspirations to sainthood here. Most of us – this columnist included – have been guilty of it at some time. But, my, haven’t we seen so much of it in the past week or so?

Everything from lack of enforcement to loopholes in the road safety regulations to holes in the road to the weakness of the demerit points system to good ol’ rasuah has been blamed.

Yet even amidst the pushing and passing, possible solutions have emerged – thanks to people voicing their opinions (see The Star’s letters pages and Citizen’s Blog, among others), and bold decisions and statements by some individuals in higher places.

At the heart of these possibilities is a unified network of preventive measures – one that can only exist if all the parties involved cease their buck-passing and take responsibility, at least for their respective portion of the problem.

Maybe we should also look at abolishing this aberrant form of tai chi as our next national campaign, rather than go over ground which others have travelled (such as having a courtesy campaign, which our southern neighbours had, oh, two decades ago at least).

We need to identify its various branches and seek to abolish them not by sending in Manchu spies to poison the abbots and burn the temples (oh, sorry, that’s Shaolin kung fu – but you get the idea), but by making a conscious decision to cease and desist in our own spheres of work and life.

In the examples given above, we see the most common and reflex-based: the immediate deflection of any incoming blame, or pointing fingers. It seeks to take advantage of the confusion when everyone is talking at once – and loudly, too – in order to hide in plain sight until the fuss dies down.

The good thing is that this time, after the safety measures approved by the Cabinet last week, those involved will not be so safe in their hideaways.

Yet the practice will go on elsewhere. In another branch of the art, the incoming force is diverted to no place in particular, or to a party that cannot be brought to book.

An example close to home: a couple of years ago, a group of plainclothes policemen came to my dad’s bookshop looking for books on deviant teachings.

I asked the group leader why the force dedicated so much manpower to this sort of pursuit when they could be out on the streets catching dangerous criminals like snatch-thieves and rapists.

“Oh, that’s part of city life,” he said dismissively, presumably referring to the criminals and not the checks on deviant teachings. Dang, who am I to get all upset that such a social ill exists then?

Another version of this practice has also been experienced by scores of crime victims who, upon attempting to lodge a police report for an incident like a snatch theft, are told: “Ini perkara biasa.” (It’s an everyday occurrence.)

Don’t you feel bad for making a fuss about something as commonplace as breathing?

Or like when your offspring says or does something so completely shocking, based on stuff s/he picked up from you, and you just shrug at your gobsmacked friends and say, “Kids.”

It may seem all too general and vague, but in reality it takes a lot of practice to pull it off with such nonchalance.

And of course, we have the most insidious form of this art, the reflective/reflexive variety – which, like the most effective forms of self-defence, turns the attacker’s momentum back on him with minimal effort expended on the defender’s part.

Recognise this? I’m sure you have experienced or heard it in one form or another.

Good thing that few among us exhibit such thought patterns, though the occurrence is still alarming.

It is employed whenever there is a plaintive cry for help from, say, senior citizens who are afraid to go out of the house because criminals prey on them. (Not content to merely rob, these scumbags actually deliberately injure their victims who already cannot fight back; and sadly, they are tai chi-ed over to the “social ill that we can’t do much about” category.)

You see it in action when condo-dwellers appeal for tighter security, or commercial complex tenants ask the carpark operators for better lighting, or the physically challenged ask for improved facilities to help them get around more easily, or long-time residents asking not to be evicted when the land they are on is acquired.

You hear it when a rape victim laments the irreparable harm done to her psyche and dignity when all she did was be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The refrains may vary from case to case, but they have a general pattern, and typically begin with “Who asked you to ?” or “No one forced you to ?” just to emphasise the “fact” that it’s really all your fault.

“Who asked you to dress so sexily?”

“Who asked you to move in here?”

“Who asked you to make yourself a victim?” (A question indirectly asked of crime victims by a senior government official who suggested last year that many of them actually invite it upon themselves.)

“Garmen* won’t let. Who asked you to vote for them?”

“Who asked you to go out so late/early?”

“Cannot move around, don’t go out lah. Who asked you to go out?”

Maybe we could all make a conscious start today by eliminating such questions from our vocabulary; by ensuring that our children don’t fall into bad company and habits; by cleaning up our own messes; and by welcoming, rather than eluding, responsibility.

Don’t you feel pressured now? Well ? who asked you to read this? Sorry, force of habit.

 

[blackrobe]

Damn! I was up and down on those roads the past few days....sheeesh...

 

[okow]

Damn! I was up and down on those roads the past few days....sheeesh...

Blackrobe, As long as you were driving you have control of the situation and not on one of them busses where the driver gets a fix before his duty, you'll be alright.
'Ops Bersih' has nabbed bus drivers who tested positive for drugs. Havent I read this before? We have drivers of public transportation who are 'high' How wonderful.!

Below is an extract from our dailies:

By V.P.SUJATA and M. SIVANANTHA SHARMA

PUTRAJAYA: It's been barely 24 hours since the start of Ops Bersih and the authorities have already arrested a driver and his co-driver for testing positive for drugs while driving an express bus.
They also issued 117 summonses for various traffic offences, including one to a driver who was supposed to be under suspension because he had accumulated more than 15 Kejara demerit points.
On top of that, a lorry driver was arrested for carrying 50kg of ketum while three passengers in an express bus were detained for testing positive for drugs.
Road Transport Department (JPJ) enforcement chief Salim Parlan said these were the first successes as more than 680 buses and lorries were inspected at 15 locations nationwide. Among the summonses issued were for permit violation (49 offences), absence of co-driver (10), violation of driving licence (18), overloading (45) and technical offences such as having bald tyres and faulty brakes (32).

Technical offences such as bald tyres and faulty brakes....no wonder they always cannot brake in time...go off a cliff and crash into a ravine la, crash into toll booth la, etc. and when interrogated driver will always say: brakes failed.

 

[sithwarrior]

which papers is this from Okow ?

 

[okow]

which papers is this from Okow ?

Today's The Star

 

[okow]

This was Tuesday's news. These poor souls came here to make a living (although illegally) and died in the hands of our authorities...why I say that, read further....apparently the 20 year old co-bus driver doesnt even have a driving licence. KDN should be held responsible for contracting such irresponsible operators...lets see if they'd dare reveal the identity of the stakeholders of these bus operators.

Five killed in bus crash (Updated)
By TUNKU SHAHARIAH and NORLIA RAMLI

BALING: Five people - four illegal Myanmar immigrant detainees and a bus co-driver - died on the spot when the bus they were travelling swerved into a ravine near here.
Forty-two other illegal immigrant detainees, all Myanmar nationals, including four women on board sustained injuries in the 4.30pm accident at Batu 8, Tanjung Pari in Baling-Kelantan Highway Tuesday.
The deceased co-driver is identified as Mohd Faizal Abdullah, 20, from Seberang Pumpong, Alor Star.
Driver Halim Mat, 46, also from the same place in Alor Star is critically injured.
Together with them was an immigration officer Yahaya Shaikh Salleh from Alor Star, who sustained minor injuries.
Of the 42 detainees, 11 were critically injured and in serious condition while the others sustained minor injuries.
Two were admitted at Alor Star Hospital, one in Sungai Petani and the others here. The immigrants were aged between 40 and 44. They were enroute to a detention camp in Rantau Panjang, Kelantan from the detention camp in Belantik, Sik, near here, when the accident happened.
Baling OCPD Supt Mat Daud Mat Hassan said they were travelling in a school bus when the bus swerved and landed in a ravine, adding that the driver was said to have lost control before the accident.
He said the Myanmar embassy had been notified.
Halim Mat said he was driving down the slope when he saw a stationary lorry parked in the middle of the road.
He said the immigration officer on board alerted him about the lorry infront.
“I told him I will try and save but skidded into the ravine,” he said when interviewed at the Baling Hospital.

Source - The Star

 

[okow]

....and here's another...

Two killed, nine injured after bus plunges into sea

By TEH ENG HOCK

Photo Gallery
JOHOR BARU: Two passengers died after their bus plunged into the sea at the Stulang Laut beach near Jalan Ibrahim Sultan.
Nine more people, including the bus driver, were injured in the 8am accident yesterday and were sent to the Sultanah Aminah Hospital.
Rescuers recovered the body of Esa Aman, 47, at about 8.30am, and the body of Kweh Mei Phing, 49, at around 9.30am. Police fear some passengers might have drifted out to sea.

Rescuers carrying out the body of one of the passengers killed when the bus they were travelling in plunged into the sea at Stulang Laut in Johor Baru yesterday. Two passengers died and nine others, including the driver, were injured in the mishap.

Johor Baru (South) traffic chief Deputy Supt Ooi Kok Siong said the bus was travelling from Johor Baru city along Jalan Lingkaran Dalam towards Stulang Laut when the driver lost control of the vehicle in the rain and it plunged into the sea.
“We will be conducting a more detailed check on the bus and the driver,” he said.
One of the passengers who cheated death, V. Pathamawathy, 54, said the bus was not speeding as it neared a bus stop near her workplace at Menara MSC Cyberport.
“The bus was travelling at normal speed. But somehow it did not stop. The next thing I know, the bus was heading into the sea,” she said.
The clerk suffered a fractured toe on her right leg in the accident.
DSP Ooi said search and rescue operations would continue.
The Johor Baru Fire and Rescue Department operations commander Abdul Hamid Suhari said 19 personnel, including 10 from the scuba diving unit, took part in the search and rescue efforts.

Lucky to be alive: Pathamawathy resting in bed at the Sultanah Aminah Hospital in Johor Baru yesterday after the accident.

“The bus was lying on its side, making it hard to search for victims. We then used a crane to get the bus upright,” he said.
Kweh’s body was discovered after a crane, borrowed from a nearby construction site, was used to lift the bus.
At about 10.20am, two more cranes arrived to help drag out the bus from the sea. The three cranes finally lifted the bus out at about 11am.
Pathamawathy and three others were warded at the Sultanah Aminah Hospital while five were discharged after receiving outpatient treatment.
Nor Azrin Md Zam, 27, was warded for aspiration pneumonia (swallowing water), while Manis Ibrahim, 52, had a concussion. Driver R. Moorthy, 51, suffered internal injuries and broke his left leg. The driver could not be interviewed at press time as he was heavily sedated.

 

[ALBundy]

Same story all over again, more innocent lives are lost.


Family mourns loss of beautiful, intelligent go-getter

By ANDREA FILMER

PENANG: She had the world at her feet but death robbed medical student Lee Nian Ning of a brilliant future.
The straight As student, former state swimmer and accomplished Girl Guide was on the double-decker express bus from Penang to Kuala Lumpur which crashed near Slim River on Friday.
Nian Ning, 21, a Public Service Department (PSD) scholar at the University of New South Wales in Australia who was on her way to visit friends in Kuala Lumpur, was among three passengers who perished when the driver lost control of the bus and slammed into a divider.
“We learnt that the driver had 13 summonses against him. Why had the company not screened him and realised that he was not competent to drive that bus?

Final rites: Friends paying their last respects to Nian Ning at her Taman Gelugor home in Penang Sunday.


“I wonder why the authorities still allowed such a monster to roam our streets?” asked Nian Ning's distraught father Lee Hock Chuan, 50, a company human resources director.
He also expressed disappointment over the bus company's reaction to the tragedy.
“They know who the victims are and yet, I have yet to receive a single call from them. There is not a single representative from the company here today to pay respects to my eldest daughter,” he said.
The family is contemplating legal action and Lee appealed to witnesses to come forward.

Devastated: Nian Ning’s parents looking through a scrapbook containing goodbye letters from her close friends.


“It won’t bring her back but we just want justice to be done,” he said.
The attractive Nian Ning, who stood 1.72m tall, was a national backwoods cooking champion and had set her sights on becoming a doctor.
She scored straight As in both the UPSR and PMR and obtained 11A1s and one A2 in the SPM exams.
“From a young age, she was so clear about her goal. Even though she had been approached to be a model, the only thing she wanted to be was an orthopaedic surgeon,” said her mother Ong Keep Gim, 48, a teacher.
Friends and family of the young victim paid their respects at her home in Taman Gelugor yesterday.
She was later cremated at the Batu Gantung crematorium.
More than 20 of her closest friends also created a scrapbook with personal messages to their friend.
“She was determined and a perfectionist,” said J.A. Cheng, 20, who was Nian Ning's schoolmate. “She knew what she wanted in life and achieved her dreams. We will miss her very much.”

 

[xtracooljustin]

first it was the Health Minister to go. Time for the Transport Ministry as well?

 

[berserkdroid]

first it was the Health Minister to go. Time for the Transport Ministry as well?

Must cum out with DVD first.....

 

[ramsing]

RIP to the girl and family.

hmmm....people dont realise most things will never change in m'sia. after a month, everything goes back to normal. until it happens again, then wait a month, status quo. i forget how many times have people fallen into manholes, promises are made, then someone else falls into one.

bus drivers will continue to be a) high b) 15 tickets against them c) sleepy d) no license e) drunk. pls choose a combo of the a to e.

aiya, why takut, this is m'sia, semua bole kautim. if u cannot kautim, means u not enuf duit la bang.

if u want change, u know what to do..... vote RB for next PM. then we all can drive affordable 335i.

 

[xtracooljustin]

Anyway... more on that poor girl that perished. Her friends who blogged has started many blog entries on that incident.

According to the survivors, the top deck was swaying left and right as the driver was going really fast. Some passengers at the bottom deck saw the driver smsing a lot and driving really fast in the heavy rain. After awhile the passengers felt something amiss and saw the bus driver STAND UP suddenly(while the bus was moving!) and split seconds later, the passengers screamed really loudly and the bus spun three times, hit the divider and careened to the opposite highway where an oncoming MPV crashed into the back of the bus. Nian Ning and Mohd Zailani were sitting at the back row. I’m not sure about the other chinese boy who also passed away. But that’s what I’ve gathered. The passengers of the MPV only suffered minor injuries. To add insult to the injury, the bus driver only sustained a broken right leg. I’m curious to know what is happening to him now though.

http://jlshyang.blogspot.com/

http://jayelleenelial.com/?p=551

And finally, the poor girl's blog.
http://nianz.blogspot.com/

A petition will be up soon and I feel we should all do our part n sign on this petition should it ever be published. And also those of you who takes express buses or have close relatives/friends who take express buses, please avoid Konsortium Sdn Bhd from now on.

 

[xtracooljustin]

Pls support this petition

Say No to Bus Crash!
http://www.petitiononline.com/buscrash/petition.html