Bus crash prompts unprecedented response – but will it improve safety?

Bus crash prompts unprecedented response – but will it improve safety?

By Tim McLaughlin and Hsu Hlaing Htun   |   Wednesday, 28 May 2014

On May 12 a bus lurched out of Nay Pyi Taw at around 6:30pm under an early monsoon season downpour and pulled onto the Yangon-Mandalay Highway.

A sign on the Yangon-Nay Pyi Taw section of the Yangon-Mandalay Highway warns motorists not to exceed 60 miles (97 kilometres) an hour. Photo: Staff

Behind the wheel was a 34-year-old driver, who colleagues said was a 15-year veteran of the bus industry, but was driving with a suspended licence following a crash last year. He was also at the tail end of marathon driving session that started more than 12 hours earlier, at 2am.

Passengers – a cross section of the Myanmar citizens who rely on the country's extensive bus network, including Nay Pyi Taw-based civil servants, a construction worker from Yangon and monk from Mandalay – settled into a familiar routine.

The interior lights dimmed, many watched a TV as the bus rolled south toward Yangon.

Others dozed, expecting to be wakened at the 115 Mile rest stop by the hissing of air brakes and announcement of a bus attendant, where they would file off the bus to eat and sip tea.

But about half an hour after departure the routine was broken when the driver lost control of the bus as it was crossing the Wetlet railway bridge.

It careened off the road, ploughing though a distance marker, a set of concrete barrier blocks and a safety railing before plunging off the bridge and slamming into the sodden ground 45 metres below.

Ko Chan Myay, assistant driver on the bus, rushed to open the emergency exit located on the roof of the bus and pull passengers out of the wreckage.

The wreck was the most severe he had witnessed in his seven years on buses. The windows were shattered and the impact had torn through the image of the London skyline that decorated the body of the bus.

"I have never seen an accident like it," he told The Myanmar Times.

Ten men and four women were killed. Another 29 were injured, including the driver.

The accident fed into local perceptions that have seen the road dubbed "The Death Highway". From January to April of this year, there were 147 serious accidents on the highway, killing 57 and injuring 262, according to official statistics. The May crash came one month after a fiery collision between a bus and a car claimed 12 lives. In 2013, 259 accidents occurred on the road, with 113 people killed and 627 injured.

As stories of the crash filled the pages of news journals and pictures of the wrecked bus circulated through social media officials scrambled to defend the road's safety record and laid much of the blame on reckless drivers and the bus companies that fail to properly train them. They have announced changes aimed at decreasing the hazards of the highway while restoring the confidence of drivers and passengers shaken by the recent string of crashes.

Days after the accident the Nay Pyi Taw Council announced it had banned Yarzarmin, the company operating the bus that crashed on May 12, from using the road. It was an unprecedented step.

"This closure could help decrease accidents and ensure respect for rules and regulations," Nay Pyi Taw District Supervisory Committee for Traffic Rules Enforcement chair U Saw Hla, a member of Nay Pyi Taw Council, said of the decision to bar Yarzarmin.

Despite the tragic frequency with which lives are lost on the road, the most recent crash has clearly struck a nerve. U Kyaw Lin Oo, an independent political commentator, who has closely followed the reaction to the bus crash, said that he believed the response was due in part to the number of individuals killed in the April 12 and May 12 crashes.

"In [most of the previous] crashes, maybe one or two people have died. But this time the death toll was very high," he said.

He added that the relatively high compensation given to passengers and their families also heightened public interest in the accident.

Others have pointed out the location of the crash, just miles from the showpiece capital that is playing host the ASEAN this year, as a reason for the government's swift response.

When announcing the ban on Yarzarmin, Nay Pyi Taw Council officials cited statistics that showed almost two-thirds of accidents on the highway in 2013 were caused by human error, with another 24pc attributed to mechanical failure. Just 1pc were attributed to the condition of the road.

The driver of the bus has been charged with four offences – causing death by negligence, causing grievous hurt, causing hurt and rash driving – despite police who investigated the crash admitting that he was not speeding. Drinking was also ruled out as a factor.

Fatigue appears the more likely cause: Government spokesperson U Ye Htut said the driver had been on the road almost continuously since 2am on the morning of the crash, when he departed Myawaddy for Yangon. After stopping in Yangon he left for Nay Pyi Taw at about 8am.

But questions continue to surface over the quality of the road. Completed in 2009 following an astonishingly short construction period, the 366-mile road is almost entirely concrete. Commissioned by the previous military government, it was built without foreign expertise, creating what experts say is a dangerous driving surface.

"The curves are not designed for ease of steering. The 'waviness' of the surface indicates that the foundations were not built properly, which causes uneven subsidence beneath the surface," Masahiko Tanaka, head of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Myanmar, which carried out a study on the road's condition, wrote in a June 2013 op-ed published by The Myanmar Times.

Basic safety elements found on highways in other countries – roadside reflectors, signs warning motorists of upcoming turns, adequate lighting and rumble strips to alert drivers that they are veering off the road – are conspicuously absent.

Though local media often pegs the cost of the road at around US$1 billion, Sean Turnell, a Myanmar-focused economist at Sydney's Macquarie University, said it would be difficult to know the true amount spent.

"Proper costings of this road will always be difficult, especially since some of it was built for consideration 'in kind' by crony firms whose main focus was always the concessions they could yield from such projects," Mr Turnell said.

As a result of this latest crash, government outlay on the highway is set to rise further. On May 19, President U Thein Sein visited the highway along with Minister for Construction U Kyaw Lwin and said the road should be enlarged from four lanes to six. Days earlier, Deputy Minister for Construction U Soe Tint had told reporters that the road would be doubled to eight lanes.

But Mr Turnell cautioned against a quick-fix made without sufficient forethought and planning.

"The big problem of course is that there is no process in all of this – no deliberation in decision making, no cost-benefit analysis," he said.

Other experts say that while road improvements would make travel safer, that focusing solely on infrastructure would address only a piece of the problem.

Roy Ben Eliezer, managing director at Yangon's Interdisciplinary Centre for Road Safety (ICRS), said that while poor road conditions are an issue, the skills and habits of drivers and the safety of vehicles also need to be addressed to fully combat the problem.

The easing of imports has seen an increase of newer, safer buses and cars make their way onto Myanmar's roads but Mr Eliezer said proper driving training is still severely lacking.

"This is a silent epidemic," said Mr Eliezer, who has helped to train members of Myanmar traffic police as well as local drivers. "People do not pay attention until [an accident] comes knocking on your door."

Safety programs in schools and increased training of drivers of all ages could significantly improve road safety, according to Mr Eliezer, who said he "refused to believe" that poor roads alone were to blame.

"You have a responsibility. Not just for your life, but for the lives of others on the road," he said.

Where does the decision to upgrade the road come from, then? Faced with a problem as entrenched as bad driving habits, the government and private companies, he said, "face difficulty knowing where to begin".

Source: http://www.news.myanmaronlinecentre.com/2014/06/02/bus-crash-prompts-unprecedented-response-but-will-it-improve-safety/