The Kaohsiung Ciaotou District Court yesterday sentenced an Aloha Bus Co (阿羅哈客運) driver to four years and two months in prison for negligence resulting in death, after a highway accident on Sept. 11 last year that killed six passengers and left 11 others injured.
As this is the first ruling in the case, the decision can be appealed.
Aloha has yet to reach a financial settlement with the families of three of the passengers who were killed and two of passengers who sustained injuries.
Photo: Huang Chia-lin, Taipei Times
Investigators found that the driver, Wu Hsieh-sung (吳?松), ducked down to look for something on the floor. When he looked up, he had to swerve to avoid hitting a car and crashed into the median strip on the Sun Yat-sen Freeway (Freeway No. 1) in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (岡山).
The judges said that when police arrived on the scene, Wu identified himself as driver of the bus and admitted that he was responsible for the crash.
Wu also expressed remorse, and by doing so he met the criteria to have his punishment reduced from the maximum five-year prison term, the judges said.
Other considerations the judges cited were that Wu did not have a prior record of accidents, that he did not come from a well-off family, and that he lost his job with Aloha after the accident and has only been able to find work as a manual laborer.
Investigators found that Wu was not overworked and the company had complied with labor laws.
They also found that Wu had not worked overtime in the seven days prior to the accident, and he had had 10 hours of rest before driving, as required by law.
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