Following a fatal tour bus accident last week that killed 33 people, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications has ordered a recall and inspection of 166 buses of the same model in a bid to restore public confidence in road safety ahead of the 228 Memorial Day holiday.
The ministry is to complete the inspections by Monday to rebuild public trust in bus safety before the end of the holiday on Tuesday next week, Department of Railways and Highways Director Lin Chi-guo (林繼國) said.
The ministry also plans to complete an inspection of 5,157 tour buses that are more than 10 years old within a month, as those vehicles were manufactured before the promulgation of safety regulations requiring a rollover test for all buses.
Photo: CNA
Tour buses manufactured after 2009 were produced with higher safety standards and pose little safety concern, Minister of Transportation and Communications Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) said.
The bus that crashed last week was 19 years old, but the force of the collision was far more severe than the impact in most rollover tests, even those conducted in Europe, where higher standards apply, he added.
Although prosecutors are still investigating what caused one of the deadliest tour bus accidents in the nation’s history, the accident might have happened because of the driver’s “behavioral problems,” Hochen said.
“It was not because the legal regulations on bus structure were insufficient,” Hochen said.
The ministry will increase inspections of low-price and long-distance tours, encourage a driver shift system for long-distance trips and remove high-risk tour packages off the market to increase tourism safety, he added.
Measures are to be taken to require that buses be equipped with advanced dashboard cameras with biometric identification systems and GPS trackers to manage drivers’ behavior, Hochen said, adding that high-risk tourism products would also be red-flagged to warn the public.
A short-term solution should not be expected for a license-leasing issue in the transportation and delivery industry, a common practice in which vehicle owners are registered under a corporation, but operate almost independently, often resulting in confusion over legal responsibility and accident liability, he said.
The tour bus that crashed last week was operating on a leased license.
The ministry will revise the law to confer a legal status on the license-leasing practice and establish related regulations, Hochen said.
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