Another horrible bus crash!

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
21

[quote=“plasmatron”]they can do anything they like to regulate the bus industry in terms of maintenance and safety standards (although this will never happen, too many hong baos flying back and forth) but what really leads to these bus tragedies is the same thing that causes regular car and bike smashes, good old Taiwanese cowboy driving… I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Taiwanese cannot or will not grasp the concepts of risk, cause and effect and potential repercussions of dangerous actions… drivers of every kind of vehicle, but especially heavy vehicles, trucks, busses and the like, careen around at insane speeds, through densely populated, built up or steep mountainous areas in their atrociously maintained vehicles on the very brink of losing control without even one nanosecond spared to think “what if…” willful, total and unthinking contempt for the safety and lives of others… a bus accident like this makes the news because multiple deaths and injuries from one crash make good news (read: tabloid gutter press) headlines, but the cumulative carnage from the hundreds of smashes like it that happen everyday but never make the news is far worse…

The fact that the vast majority of people who drive for a living in Taiwan are elementary school drop out, binlang chewing, whisby swilling, flip flop wearing half wits doesn’t help… the transport companies that have friends in low places and use hong baos to bring their equipment and vehicles up to “standard” don’t help either… but the single most glaringly obvious reason behind this and every horror smash like it is Taiwan’s fundamental lack of a police force… when will the anarchy, treachery and carnage get too much for even the backwards village mentality of the average Chen and make Taiwanese people decide they want an actual police force and the rule of law, not some poorly trained, over paid “see no evil, hear no evil” chimps in blue uniforms?.. sadly for the future of Taiwan I think I know the answer to that question… never…[/quote]

:notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy:

Can’t say anymore than that -except you left out the mindless big bike riders who ride and crash (On almost every outing I’ve been on) I saw another container truck crash on Bei Hai An (The Road of Death). This afternoon, he lost his container and his life I was guessing since the windshield and the back seat were touching.

22

Anyone got a map that shows wherebouts this is? Is it going up the front or back of YMShan?

I know the roads get steep around YMS but I can’t imagine a bus careening off the edge. How friggin fast was he going?

And as a swipe at the TT, what the company does doesn’t deserve its own paragraph at the end of the article. It should be incorporated into the first sentence.[/quote]

yang teh tah tao usually refers to the main road that goes up to yangmingshan, not one of the backroads.[/quote]

Since you aren’t in TW, and you can’t read carefully, JDSmith was aware that Yangde Da Dao is the main road on Yangmingshan, and that it goes up, around the top, and down the other side to Jinshan. He specifically said front/back.

Anyway, I would assume that the likeliest scenario after reading the story was that the direct sales company employees (charter tour bus) were on the back of YMS, going to a hotspring restaurant. It’s much steeper and more innaccessible over there, and as they said, rescue efforts were initially hampered. However, if anyone can pinpoint it exactly it would be interesting.[/quote]

OH MOnkey , MOnkey !! Thank you very much for excusing me by virtue of physical presence. However, un-beknown to you, the last few years I was in Taiwan , I commuted from my home in Wanli to Ginshan and then to Taipei by way of Yangmingshan. And unless I had been driving like Stevie Wonder (ie blind) I was very much under the impression that the road from Ginshan to Yangmingshan is known as YANG GIN (for Yangmingshan to Ginshan) gong ru (public road) and that Yang Teh Tao Tao specifically refers to the main road from Yangmingshan down to Shilin. And in fact several buses have been known to have gone over the edge on that road as its quite steep and traffic does move pretty briskly. IN fact to my knowledge very few bus mishaps have occurred on the back side down to Ginshan. But what the heck do I know? I just have driven that road every day for about five years?[/quote]
I stand corrected on the name of the road from the top down to Jinshan. Many thanks. Unbeknownst to you, I’ve been over YMS at least 120 times myself, and know the main roads (up and down both sides) and back/side roads well, driving, hitching, riding scooter and bicycle, and hiking…not just going to and fro to work.

However, I still have the general impression you can’t read or write very precisely, and everything you just wrote typifies that. BTW you said last few years-or every day for 5 years. Which is it? What did you really add to this thread, apart from correcting JDS in a useless manner, then me? At least I took a stab at where it could be, and pointed out they were direct sales employees on a tour. Please don’t reply, if you must, take it to PM. We’re off topic enough.

Back on topic-and my last for this thread-Maoman and JDS were right, the driver must have been going fast down that stretch. Lucky man escaped without serious injuries. Wonder if he feels massive guilt?[/quote]

Monkey? I dont know you right? And neither do you know me? So I dont think we need to compare penis size here (ie whos been on YMS more then the other). You , for whatever reason, thought that YANG Teh went all the way to Gin Shan. And I pointed out this tiny error. I am not questioning your knowledge of the area or for that matter your integrity as a person. But you were incorrect on the name of that stretch of road and I corrected you. NO need to get upset right? And do you really need to psycho-analyse everyone who posts? I dont need to . If I made a factual error I am happy someone corrected me. It doesnt matter if they were on YMS once in their lives or lived there 35 years??

Anyway nothing personal monkey. Peace brother. If you felt personally attacked I apologize.

By the way, there must be something in the water not only on Taiwan but on Forumosa. I was under the impression that this forum is for all peoples interested in things Taiwan. And was not limited by physical presence. You guys are starting to sound like people at the Tax Office (ie how many days have you been here this year, are you a resident, etc etc). I guess Forumosa . like Taiwan , is heading towards more restrictions. We may have to start getting a “visa” to post on Forumosa.

IN fact I do know that new posters have to get accepted in order to post (so thats the visa process right there). And thats not necesarily a bad thing if not carried to the extreme.

How many people remember the days way back when , when Taiwan was really easy to stay in? When even PHillippinos (Yes Phillippinos) could easily stay in Taiwan. All you needed to do was to get a job and pay your taxes and keep your nose clean and you could extend your visa. And there was no rules on what kind of job you could get and all that. Way different matter now.

Taiwan is now a club thats very stringent on its members. And Forumosa.com seems to be heading that way. Which I dont think is good. Chat forums should be for those interested in the subject (s) at hand.

23

This is right down the street from me, and it’s a tragedy in many ways because.

  1. this was the end of a celebratory company outing, and the company just opened
  2. the bus was apparently going less than 30km, but an idiot tried to pass, and when the approaching cars came too fast, cut the bus off, forcing the bus to slam on brakes and slam into cars in front, bouncing off them, and off the edge. (based on news reports)
  3. they think the bus was heavily weighted to the steep side due to people looking out the window.
  4. the foreign CEO just started with this new company

To answer Maoman, yes, it happened exactly where the notorious Yong Gong Rd. photo op is.
To answer someone being bigoted about bus drivers, yes, many are uneducated idiots, but I’ve known many nice non-betelnut chewing, educated drivers as well. One of them actually enjoys collecting vintage tube amps.

The road is not particularily steep there, and everyone has to slow down to 40km anyways due to the speed trap photo machine (apparently the highest revenue generating one on the island), so it’s probably not a speed thing.

The biggest problem on YMS is the idiot students and daytrippers screaming up and down on scooters, cutting between cars, driving on the wrong side, passing, etc.

The second biggest problem on YMS are cars who do exactly what happened above, pass and cut.

The day before, I was coming down the skinny backside from Wen Hua College into Tianmu, and on that ridiculously narrow steep road, was passed quickly on a turn by an SUV who ran head on into a kid coming up the hill on a scooter. If I didn’t stop I’m sure the guy would’ve driven away. The kid was f*%ked up.

I’ve seen way too many bad accidents on YMS, and drive like a grandmother on the defensive each night when I come home.

24

Offpeak -
Thanks for the info. This topic has been discussed quite a bit at my wifes company. They use ‘tour buses’ quite often for both moving employees to work sites and for the occasional visiting groups of people.
They have been giving serious thought to reviewing the maintenance and service records of the company they usually use.

25

[quote=“llary”]During the rainy season here in Da Keng I pull about one car a week out of the mountain rainwater ditches. 90% of the time they are unfamiliar with these driving conditions, panic when another vehicle approaches and drive straight into the ditch. Going downhill the problem usually seems to a particularly bad combination of this plus brake fade, where they hold the brakes constantly instead of shifting to a lower gear (when asked, not one of these people even knew what ‘1’ or ‘2’ actually did on their automatic transmission!)

A few weeks back when the rain got really heavy there was a sudden rush of idiots driving up our mountain lane in 2WD Escapes thinking that owning an SUV means they can automatically drive through apalling weather conditions on dangerous, slippy, unfamiliar country lanes. I got caught in a particularly bad downpour as I was driving downhill one afternoon and a few large trees came down in front of my truck. I started reversing back up (not enough room to turn around) and some woman driving a gold Escape (says it all) kept beeping and wouldn’t budge, so I had to get out and tell her about 300 times there was a blockage while getting completely f’ing soaked in the process. After she finally accepted this fact I watched the extremely painful image of her trying to reverse uphill around a bend… after 15 minutes of watching her completely failing to grasp the physics of reversing I caved in to impatience and drove the thing for her. I told her that the safest thing to do was wait inside the car under cover of our community area and she then started getting angry as if it was my damn fault she came up here in a piece of shit SUV with the driving skills of a blind squirrel. So I drew them a map with an alternative route back down but made it clear that route was very dangerous in this kind of weather and people had died there from falling rocks and trees. Of course they go anyway, berating me giving them bad luck by talking of death. About two hours later when the rain has subsided I drive up the alternative route to see if anyone has got stuck and needs help. To the considerable credit of the local residents, there are a few guys with big trucks here who do the same and pull people out of ditches etc. Go Da Keng :laughing: Anyway, not far up I find Miss SUV Prissy Bitches stuck in half a foot of mud with a dead engine so I tow them out and one of the trucks tows them back down to the community area. A proper tow truck is called and she leaves without saying thankyou to anyone. And you just know she will go and do this again next week.

The mountain roads around Da Keng are actually very well maintained, so lord knows what other areas are like. Bloody townies.[/quote]

:smiley: :smiley: THAT’LL learn ya to stay away from em prissy B !! Plus shes probably thought she had a fantastic and exciting time with some near death experiences, machomen in tow trucks and she met a yeti even (you) Just kidding , just kidding. . Great story at the KTV. YOu can bet she will be back !!

EDIT: hoORAY. this post makes me shakespeare. I was tired of being a “beetlenut beauty” (tired of being fondled)

26

So (if I catched it right…) the first reaction (of course AFTER something serious happend) is that they want to change the law and make it mantatory to use seatbelts on buses.
I other words, instead of enforcing the laws they have in first place, making sure mantaniance of the buses and maybe even training of the bus drivers is on a level where it should be they go the “easy way” and make another law which will never be enforced. Tha bad thing is, that I am not even surprised anymore, could have bet on that.
Oh, but of course there is also the guy who wants to check all 3000 something buses running in Taipei?/Taiwan? and check all the 260? bus companies beginning with the once with bad safty records. Wait, there are bus companies with bad safty records on this island? Forgot to hand the Honbao over in time?
I guess the only thing which would help would be more people asking up the safty of the buses like TC mentioned. Why I still believe that will not really happen, that the mass will actually buy the “we are concerned about safty so we give you another law (but don’t care to enforce it)” thing as “you see, they’ve done something, it’s safe now” bill.

27

So the latest news is that the bus was greatly modified from its intended design. It used a ready built chassis, engine,gearbox, axle assembly imported from abroad (don’t know where, they didn’t say. You have to forgive them, they are only Taiwan news reporters.) Then later the body was attached and then modified from its original one deck design to accommodate a second deck level. The required government safety checks [cough, cough] are different for buses of different heights and this bus was deliberately brought to within one centimeter of having to take a more stringent safety exam. The fore mentioned second deck was pretty much spot welded on top of the first deck which was the only deck to have significant impact reinforcement, the second deck was simply placed on top and offered only basic rigidity so that it wouldn’t fall off through normal driving.
There was a so called “expert” bus driver being interviewed on Dong Shun News last night who suggests that the driver of the bus was probably not too tired, as bus drivers these days get up to three hours sleep a day which is much better than the previous three days non stop driving that most drivers were expected to perform to maintain their wages at a reasonable level a few years back, so exhaustion was probably not the cause :astonished: .
The tyres on the bus were reused tyres and not new when fitted (in the U.K. 30% of reused tyres are unsafe according to motoring authorities, I’d hate to imagine the Taiwan situation), but according to the bus company’s boss, they were well within their minimum tread depth limit (which is bald by the way). They didn’t mention whether all tyres were of the same tread type and depth however as Taiwan has no requirements that tyres fitted must be of identical tread and depth. This requirement abroad is to ensure that tyres running parallel to each other both contact the road and distribute the load evenly across all tyres as the wheels are fixed and don’t move independently from one another. Exact tread types are also a requirement abroad so as to provide predictable handling and performance in all weathers and steering, turning conditions. I’m sure that Taiwan has no rules regarding these basic principles, and if they do they are certainly not enforced.
Taiwan also has no rules to ensure the safety of passengers in the event of an accident such as this by demanding the use of seatbelts.
Taiwan also rarely implements the use of road traps or gravel pits which are dug to the side of steep declines, usually placed at corners which allow heavy or light vehicles the opportunity to safely ditch at the side of the road when normal vehicle braking fails and a crash would otherwise happen.
Taiwan doesn’t offer spot checks on commercial road vehicles to maintain standards (what standards?).

Put simply Taiwan doesn’t give a shit unless some Mayor’s wife dies, in which case they make a token gesture by bringing in a new law that will have no enforcement other than by way of the government making more money from tickets.

Taiwan shows off its ugly self again!

28

Not sure the seat belts alone would be of any help, if the bus rolls over you are likely to get crushed. So in addition tour busses should have a roll-over cage - and I don’t just mean in Taiwan. Several days ago a bad accident happened in Germany where the bus was hit in the back and pushed down an embankment, it landed on its roof and resulted in 13 deaths. Very similar accident and it’s reasonable to assume the bus there was not modified.

Well, actually I do know - installing a roll-over cage comes at the cost of at least one row of seats, and that of course is lost profit.

29

And here:[quote]
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. - A tour bus carrying members of an extended Alabama family home from a reunion veered off a southern Kentucky highway early Monday and slammed into an overpass, killing one person and injuring 66 others.

State police said the driver apparently dozed off shortly before 3 a.m., while most of the passengers were asleep. The bus veered off Interstate 65, struck an earthen embankment and rammed a concrete bridge pillar about 75 miles north of Nashville.[/quote]

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070626/ap_ … _bus_crash

30

This is something I would come across very regularly in the UK and have never encountered in Taiwan. Police pull over random vans, trucks etc., mainly checking for red diesel. As a bonus they check the status of the vehicle, measure tread gauges, check emissions, perform basic roadworthiness test and query the PNC to see if there are any naughty boys on board. At the time I thought it was a pain in the ass but right now the same restrictions in Taiwan would seem like a very attractive proposition.

31

Set belts usually always help in an impact as well as helping to keep passengers within the vehicle. Most people nearly always die on exiting the vehicle at speed. The bus you mentioned in Germany according to the report did indeed land on its roof and compacted, although this is quite different from the bus in Taiwan which rolled onto its roof and the roof freely came right off. The roof should have offered much greater torsional rigidity which it was not even close to achieving.

32

Well one of my customers lives just near the crash site at Lane 5 sec3. As I was driving past you can see where the bus went for a brief " I believe I can fly " trip.

Just down the road as I was driving down at 9:35am a young man had plastered himself all over the road. Not sure if he was going down or up as the police and ambulance were just arriving as I was passing by. No helmet to be seen but a lod of head left on the road and the red stuff was bein mopped up by some people who probably just stopped to help the poor lad.

But in the mornings many students race past the traffic with scare regards to other road users.

You lose a few every year by this natural selection process.

33

Set belts usually always help in an impact as well as helping to keep passengers within the vehicle. Most people nearly always die on exiting the vehicle at speed. The bus you mentioned in Germany according to the report did indeed land on its roof and compacted, although this is quite different from the bus in Taiwan which rolled onto its roof and the roof freely came right off. The roof should have offered much greater torsional rigidity which it was not even close to achieving.[/quote]

Seatbelts on buses are not required in most countries, including here in California because of inertia. The fact that a bus, being so heavy usually pushes through in a traffic accident (unless it hits a bridge or something else strong enough to NOT move) and therefore a lot of kinetic energy is expended (upon other vehicles usually).

I do agree that seatbelt use should be mandatory and that buses should have roll cages, as many buses around the world have landed on their heads and have been compacted (where seatbelts wouldnt have saved any lives).

Buses should all be like the greyhound buses as well, that have windows that can be opened in a crash. There have been many bus fires (including a very notable one in Taiwan that killed about 50 students and a teacher) where people have not been able to get out.

Buses need to be made safer. We have the technology and the money to do it. The government has to mandate it, because private industry wont.

34

All the safty upgrades of the buses itself are for sure good and will help but if you look and see on a daily base how they usually drive than I somehow still think this is like upgrading the vehicle but still keep on runing it straight into a wall.
Don’t get me wrong, all the passive safty is nice and good but the main issue is that they shouldn’t land the in the first place. Lots of the bus drivers here behave like the whole hughe thing they drive is a little agile race car with no clue what forces are behind it. I am not sure how the regulations are here to get a bus driver license but obviously it seems they are quite low.
There should also be higher fines and more controls to the conditions technical conditions of the buses as well as to driving times. I am not sure if they have systems here which record driving times like in European trucks. There will be still people who try to cheat the system but it will help, as long they also enforce that. Would pay off anyway as the fines would be a hughe amount of additional income.
I guess none of this will come anytime soon, so better stick with making the law that people have to put on the seat belts which will be not enforced as well. :unamused:
Keeping the situation and if something happens blame the tragic cercumstances and the bad luck, bad faith plus some ghosts.

35

And there it is again: no matter what regulations you put in place, as long as enforcement doesn’t enforce, it’s not going to change much if anything here.

36

I have to take buses for work all the time. They drive like crazy people. I am always afraid it will be my last trip. I wish they would train them better, fine them higher, or somehow regulate this shit.

37

I’d like to know if anybody else who takes long-haul buses (to or from Tainan, Taichung, Kaohsiung, etc.) has seen any seat belts installed in them. Last time I went to Taichung, as the bus sped like a NASCAR car, I would have been a bit calmer knowing at least they would find me strapped to my seat and not splattered on the pavement. That was less than a month ago.

I also rode a tourist bus a couple of weeks ago, and I did not see any seat belts, as far as I recall.

Enforcement has to start with making sure that at least, they have the belts. Or is it that there is a loophole in the law somewhere? I’ve seen seatbelts in the normal city buses, for the first row seats.

38

Seatbelts might help, but in most of the accidents I’ve seen the seats had been torn from whatever shoddy device was holding them to ther floor.

HG

39

It was in the news yesterday or the day before that the driver of the bus that crashed was recently penalized 9 times for various types of poor driving. If this was almost any developed country the man would have been out of a job long ago with no license in hand.