Speeding and badly maintained roads were the main causes of a school bus accident on a rainy day in Taipei last year that severely injured two people and left 22 with minor injuries, the Taiwan Transportation and Safety Board said.
On March 11 last year, a Kang Chiao International School bus overturned inside the Wenshan Tunnel (文山隧道) on the northbound lane of the Xinyi Expressway.
The tour bus, owned by Long Lai Co, exceeded the speed limit after entering the tunnel, the board’s investigation found.
Photo copied by Su Chin-feng, Taipei Times
Sensing that the rear of the vehicle was swaying, the driver attempted to use the service and exhaust brakes to slow down the vehicle on the slippery road, the board said.
At one point, the driver made four steering adjustments in six seconds, with the steering angle increasing with each maneuver, it said.
The driver eventually lost control of the bus and crashed into the tunnel wall before the vehicle overturned, it said.
The board said it also found that the pavement of the northbound lane was severely worn due to heavy traffic.
“The pavement had never been maintained since the tunnel opened in 2005. Its skid resistance was degraded, which increased driving risks,” the board said.
The contractor hired to inspect the road failed to record the issue and misclassified cracking distress in the lane due to rigid pavement as alligator cracking, a distress typical of flexible pavement, it said.
As the driver did not require all passengers to fasten their seatbelts, at least 17 people were not wearing seatbelts when the accident occurred, it said.
After the incident, the driver could not ascertain the number of passengers on board and failed to guide them to a safe location, it added.
The bus company’s procedures for handling traffic incidents did not indicate steps that drivers should take to evacuate and regroup passengers in emergency situations, and the management guidebook for the bus did not include emergency evacuation procedures, the board said.
Some students were unfamiliar with the evacuation procedures and failed to participate in a safety drill held at the beginning of every semester, it said.
Long Lai failed to keep a detailed record of drivers’ alcohol tests, while school administrators and motor vehicle offices did not ask to examine those records, it said.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS