While the official cause of the July 19 bus fire that killed 26 people has yet to be determined, the accident has renewed questions about the safety of tour buses and prompted the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and its agencies to begin an emergency round of inspections and order a review of certification regulations.
However, yesterday’s announcement by investigators in Taoyuan that bus driver Su Ming-cheng (蘇明成) had a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit has raised concerns that the accident could be written off as another tragedy caused by drunk driving. That should not be permitted — and not just for the sake of future foreign tour groups.
While Taiwan’s bus and traffic safety record is much better than those of China, India or Nepal — to name a few of the nations which regularly make the news with high-death-toll bus accidents — it appears that the government and industry have not learned from previous tragedies.
The Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) on Wednesday said that only eight of the 20 tour buses of the same model in last week’s fire passed a post-fire inspection. The ones that failed had fuses that did not match the manufacturers’ specifications, storage batteries and power cords connected to electronic devices or other problems.
The ministry and its agencies have been dealing with modified bus designs for years and yet new issues keep cropping up — usually at the cost of lives, since it apparently takes accidents to get officials to change regulations and laws.
Two tragedies in 2006 — a Taipei city bus that went off Yangde Boulevard on Yangminghan, killing eight people and injuring 25, and a crash in Tainan County that killed 22 and injured 23 — led the ministry to impose a maximum height rule of 3.5m for buses the following year.
Those accidents showed that for cost reasons, local bus companies usually import chassis, then have the bodies put on by local manufacturers, who, in response to clients’ demands, were making dual-level buses taller — up to 3.8m — to create more interior space, even though such changes alter a vehicle’s center of gravity.
It should not have surprised anyone that a taller bus with a higher center of gravity would have reduced stability on the curvy and steeply graded roads common in Taiwan’s mountainous areas.
However, design flaws in smaller buses were highlighted by two crashes in 2012, one in Taroko Gorge that injured 13 South Korean tourists and one near Hsinchu County’s Smangus Village (司馬庫斯) that killed 13 New Taipei City residents.
The buses in both accidents had chassis that were originally designed for trucks and more specially for use on flat ground, but were adjusted to fit mini-buses introduced into Taiwan starting in 2001.
In response the DGH banned large tour buses from some mountainous areas according to its four-level categorization of buses based on wheelbases and weight. However, that led to complaints in 2013 that some tour bus operators had simply changed their vehicles’ specifications to bypass the restrictions.
While the DGH says no changes are allowed to a bus’ original electrical design, the National Joint Association of Tourist Buses says there are no laws banning electrical equipment extras. It wants the government to provide lists of electrical load details and the types of appliances allowed on board, which would seem to be a pretty basic requirement.
It is also hard to believe that the DGH only said last week that it would propose regulations to require tour bus operators to provide the maintenance records of their large passenger buses during the annual vehicle inspections.
As with so many other safety issues in this nation, the ministry, the DGH and other agencies appear trapped in a game of catch-up. Bus safety is a public safety issue, not just a threat to the nation’s tourism industry. It should be treated as such.
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) decision to step down after 19 years and hand power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), on May 15 was expected — though, perhaps, not so soon. Most political analysts had been eyeing an end-of-year handover, to ensure more time for Wong to study and shadow the role, ahead of general elections that must be called by November next year. Wong — who is currently both deputy prime minister and minister of finance — would need a combination of fresh ideas, wisdom and experience as he writes the nation’s next chapter. The world that
Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, people have been asking if Taiwan is the next Ukraine. At a G7 meeting of national leaders in January, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida warned that Taiwan “could be the next Ukraine” if Chinese aggression is not checked. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that if Russia is not defeated, then “today, it’s Ukraine, tomorrow it can be Taiwan.” China does not like this rhetoric. Its diplomats ask people to stop saying “Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow.” However, the rhetoric and stated ambition of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Taiwan shows strong parallels with