On Monday last week, a tour bus chartered for a one-day trip to view cherry blossoms in Taichung’s Wuling Farm (武陵農場) overturned on a bend in the road at the interchange between the Chiang Wei-shui Memorial Freeway (Freeway No. 5) and the Formosa Freeway (Freeway No. 3) in Taipei’s Nangang District (南港).
The accident, which apparently happened because the bus was going too fast, killed 33 people and injured 11. It is the nation’s deadliest road accident since Oct. 8, 1986, when a tour bus fell into a river at the Guguan Recreation Area (谷關風景區) in Taichung’s Heping District (和平), killing 42 people and injuring three.
Overseas news media reported last week’s accident, with some of them noting that there have been a number of tour bus accidents in Taiwan in recent years.
“Taiwan is considered one of the safest places in the world — but critics say safety standards need to be improved,” a BBC news report said.
What can be done to improve tour bus safety in Taiwan?
Below are some suggestions that government agencies might wish to consider:
When thinking of potential reasons for this deadly bus crash, the first one that comes to mind is that the driver might have been driving while drowsy or distracted, so he did not slow down as he should have when he came to a bend in the road. The resulting centrifugal force would then have caused the bus to run up against the concrete barrier and roll over.
Second, it might be that the vehicle’s body was not strong enough, so when it ran up against the barrier and flipped over, the upper part of its body broke away from the lower part, thus killing more passengers than might otherwise have been the case.
The factors contributing to tour bus crashes over the years can be put into three main categories: human, vehicle and road.
Of these, the human factor is the most crucial. The main longstanding problem is that drivers and passengers generally have an insufficient sense of risk and do not know what to do about it.
One necessary measure is to enforce reasonable work hours for drivers. If drivers could find breaks between periods of work to get a good rest and recover their strength and energy, it would help them to avoid drowsy driving.
As for passengers, if they could get into the habit of anticipating danger and fastening their seatbelts, that would also reduce their risk of being killed in the event of an accident.
The government can encourage better awareness through various kinds of public information campaigns, including at the neighborhood level.
Second is the vehicle factor. In this area, improvements could be made in the following three aspects:
First, there needs to be a change in the market’s mindset where too much importance is given to impressive-looking, high-bodied, double-decker buses while demanding low fares.
The high-bodied tour and commuter buses that one sees in other countries have tri-axle chassis, which makes them safer than the two-axle chassis that are the norm in Taiwan.
Taiwan’s legal height limit for commercial vehicles was reduced to 3.5m in 2007. However, in response to market demand, most local tour buses are still pseudo-double-deckers with raised floors, whose relatively high center of gravity makes them more likely to overturn, resulting in more serious accidents.
Second, improvements need to be made to relevant laws and regulations.
Taiwanese tend to only review and question the regulations when something goes wrong, and this tendency prevents them from keeping up with modern trends and making appropriate changes.
For example, regarding legal requirements for vehicle width, Europe, the US and China have all increased the maximum commercial vehicle width to 2.55m.
Although Taiwan follows similar road layout regulations to those of Europe and the US, it still has a maximum width of 2.49m. This discrepancy gives rise to the odd phenomenon of imported chassis being fitted with narrower Taiwan-built bodies.
When it comes to legal regulations governing vehicle weight, over the past 20 years Europe, the US and China have increased the maximum weight limit for vehicles with new-type two-axle chassis configurations to 19 tonnes, and 24 tonnes or more for tri-axle chassis.
Taiwan, however, still has a limit of 17 tonnes, which has remained unchanged for nearly 30 years, and this limit results in insufficient vehicle body strength.
Although Taiwan has a limited market for bus body building, there are nearly 20 coachwork factories of various sizes across the nation, and the vehicle bodies they make are of uneven quality.
We could change to importing complete vehicles, or require Taiwanese coachbuilders to improve their workmanship in line with international regulations.
This could be combined with a requirement to improve safety by raising load limits to 19 tonnes or more, as well as adopting higher-grade vehicle structure design.
These measures would make buses less likely to roll over and if, they do overturn, it would make their roofs less vulnerable to being torn off or crushed.
These changes would make buses considerably safer.
Finally, there is the controversial question of vehicle age.
Vehicle age requirements should be complemented by the establishment of a genuine testing system. If applied in isolation, vehicle age requirements would prompt most bus operators to buy low-power, low-safety commuter and short-haul chassis and use them to build tour buses, which would naturally involve hidden safety risks.
One policy aspect to consider is that Taiwan wants to develop its own automotive industry, so it protects this sector by imposing high import duties and commodity taxes on complete buses and other passenger vehicles.
Importing a complete bus would cost at least NT$20 million (US$650,513), which is a higher price than the market can bear.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs has in recent years sought to foster the nation’s complete-vehicle manufacturing industry by imposing added value and local content ratios. These requirements apply to tour buses, low-floor buses, electric buses and other passenger vehicles alike.
However, the ministry has failed to recognize that Taiwan lacks the requisite automotive and heavy industrial foundation.
A more practical approach would be to encourage the local auto industry to integrate with the many manufacturers that make specialized auto parts for carmakers around the world.
By integrating and adopting a safety orientation, they could produce internationally competitive vehicles equipped with active safety mechanisms, such as automatic collision warning and avoidance systems, brake assist systems, anti-lock braking systems and lane departure warning systems. Such measures could substantially help resolve the longstanding safety problems associated with tour buses.
The third and final factor to consider is the road.
Apart from continuing to monitor hazardous road sections and making the requisite improvements, real-time dynamic warning systems could be installed at accident hotspots to remind drivers to pay attention to safety.
These series of major tour bus accidents have badly tarnished Taiwan’s international image. Following the latest tragedy, the government should learn from this bitter experience by forging ahead with reforms to tour-bus-related business sectors, strictly implementing a phase-out mechanism for companies that get a C or D rating in routine inspections.
Only then can the nation make substantial improvements to serious traffic safety problems affecting local tour buses.
Lee Ker-tsung is an associate professor at Feng Chia University’s Department of Transportation Technology and Management.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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