After looking at it I’d have to say the driver just panicked and didn’t react correctly in time. Manual trucks/buses with air brakes aren’t like regular manual cars, with those types of motors you can engage the transmission before applying fuel in a way that would make a regular car stall. He should have been able to release the clutch enough to engage the transmission before switching his right foot from the brake to the fuel pedal without stalling or rolling back much if at all, that is, if he had the necessary skills. Also, just because a motor stalls out doesn’t mean the brakes stop working, especially air brakes. For air brakes all the engine does is run the generator that keeps the air tanks for the brakes fully pressurized. Even without the generator working he would have to pump the brakes many times before the air got too low. And even then if the air in the tanks got low enough the emergency brakes would spring into place and stop the vehicle. One possibility is he used the brakes too much going downhill and overheated the pads, causing the brakes to fade. In that event, like CemXen said, the brakes wouldn’t help at all to stop the vehicle until they cooled off. That’s why they have those runaway truck ramps in mountain highways back in the states. Another possibility is the brakes weren’t in good working condition to begin with, something that could have been prevented with the proper pre-trip inspection that is required before driving all commercial vehicles. Either way you look at it it’s driver error.
Thanks for the info, CemXen and louisfriend.
Here’s another one. It also happened on December 9, this one at Alishan. I think the passengers were tourists from Malaysia and Singapore, or maybe the report said most of them were. The report said 12 people were injured. I think the report said the cause was brake failure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmS6AlC6EMw#!
While I’m at it, here’s one that happened in May of this year in the Taroko area. It was a tour bus carrying Korean tourists. There were 15 injuries. I’m posting this one because in the video you can see the bus doing something similar to what the Smangus bus did–rolling backwards off the road after reportedly stalling.
Might as well include this one, which happened in July of this year. The bus was heading from Taipei to Sun Moon Lake. One person died, four people were seriously injured, and 35 people had non-serious injuries.
Was he trying to drift or something? That was crazy!
Yo have to look at the road surface, the angle of play the bus had when it started skidding (will the front slide sideways on steep slopes, happened to me in a jeep once, couldn’t get traction and the front part started veering off?) ,the weather conditions etc. They are just accidents waiting to happen.
It’s called fishtailing. The driver simply had no clue what to do when he found himself in a skid.
Question, a bit on teh side topic but alos on safety: if the bus is next to you -like if you are on the white car there- and starts doing that mambo, what should you do? Speed up and hope to outrun it, or slow down to get out of the way when it flips? I am thinking most people here drive on teh highway like there is nothing around them, won’t bnotice until the bus topples on them.
What if you are in teh bus and it rolls over? Last bus we took -a couple of weeks before, same place by the way- had seat belts, but those are not standard -and no one, even me, wore them.
Forget it, I am never driving on a mountain side ever.
The only thing I concern is inspection practice. Directorate of Highway is going to reform inspection practice into different level depend on size, machanism, type…etc. I fear that it is not going to solve the problems. Taiwanese like to create new law or framework, but seldom implement properly. A lot of time, authority ignore the warning make by other groups.
Another bus burns down on students trip
Good that the driver noticed a problem and stopped and everyone got off before the bus caught fire.
It happens. Vehicles occasionally catch fire.
Car races around Taitung today resulted in at least one car being wrapped around a telephone pole. One dead. 
BYD electric bus ?
Apparently hybrid, but I don’t particularly care.
The Guanshan one? It’s a bit absurd they do that in those spots. More absurd how many race around there at all hours, killing themselves and pedestrians.
“Race car”
Vs
Race Car
Yup
Is that the lace where they have a track?
Didn’t look that safe a track to me when I saw the pics of the place
Car versus pole = pole wins everytime
Car versus tree = same
Big bus on fire
Ev bus???
Ev = dangerous
Looks like a regular diesel tour bus.
Flammable fuel = dangerous