The fatal Aloha Bus Co crash on Saturday last week left six people dead and 11 injured.
Initial analysis of the cause of death was that the passengers were thrown from the coach, hitting the road surface at high velocity. None of those killed had been wearing seat belts.
Three major things can be drawn from this disaster.
First is the need to enforce the wearing of seat belts.
Statistics show that 65 percent of fatalities in crashes on freeways involve a failure to use seat belts.
After a fatal accident in February in which a tour bus overturned and fell down an embankment, the issue of whether transport companies should enforce the wearing of seat belts once more came to the fore.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications called a meeting with industry operators, at which a consensus was reached to amend the Transportation Management Regulations (汽車運輸業管理規則) to require passengers aged four or older on buses or coaches on national freeways or highways to wear seat belts.
At the same time, amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例) were proposed to increase fines for failure to comply with seatbelt rules to between NT$3,000 and NT$6,000.
Unfortunately, the government has been preoccupied during the intervening months trying to pass the budget for its Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program and has not included the road safety amendments in its list of legislative priorities.
Every seat in buses and coaches is fitted with a seat belt. However, the rules only stipulate that passengers sitting next to the driver, in the front row, behind emergency exit doors, as well as the middle seats in the back row, should belt up, and even then this is really only recommended practice and not actually enforced in any way.
My own observations from traveling on these buses tells me that less than half of passengers use their seat belts.
The ministry should see to it that the amendments are passed.
In the interim, coach and tour bus operators should promote the policy themselves, with drivers conducting a quick inspection of the bus prior to setting off, at which time they would ask passengers to fasten their seat belts.
Police officers could board buses at interchanges and make sure the law is being followed, writing tickets to passengers who fail to wear their seat belts.
This would hopefully encourage people, over time, to cultivate the habit of wearing seat belts.
The second thing would be to require passenger transport companies to install collision avoidance warning systems on their vehicles.
The ministry already requires that all new Class A large passenger vehicles, as of 2019, and all new vehicles of the old type, from 2021, must be fitted with brake-assist systems and lane-departure warning systems (LDWS).
In addition, the Directorate-General of Highways is subsidizing the installation of collision-avoidance warning systems and LDWS on vehicles in circulation.
According to the Kaohsiung Department of Motor Vehicles, the Aloha bus that crashed completed its second-level maintenance on Sept. 5, at which time it was fitted with a collision-avoidance warning system.
In general, if so fitted, a loud alarm should sound if the vehicle gets too close to the one in front, giving the driver time to slow down.
Unfortunately, as few vehicles actually maintain a safe following distance on national highways, drivers tend to turn these systems off, worried about being distracted by the noise.
For this reason, these systems should be adjusted slightly so that the warnings fit in more with how people drive.
At the same time, drivers should be trained how to use them properly. Otherwise, they will not perform their function of avoiding collisions and of warning drivers who are letting their attention stray.
Finally, something must be done about cars driving without their lights on.
Many sections of the nation’s freeways have no lighting to save on costs. The government should consider following how things are done in advanced countries in the West, where vehicles are required to have reflective number plates and markings to reduce the number of collisions caused by drivers not paying attention to what is happening in front of them.
It always takes a major road accident for the government to take any action to improve road safety.
Then, as time passes, people gradually forget the urgency of the issue and efforts to improve the situation fade.
Hopefully, this time the government will be forward-looking enough to do something about it.
Lee Ker-tsung is an associate professor in Feng Chia University’s Department of Transportation Technology and Management.
Translated by Paul Cooper
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS