The Star had a lengthy report on the sad state of the express bus drivers. CVLB should be taken to task as to why the pajak system is still around, which results in skewed labor market scenario for express bus drivers. We wish if we can explore more on this, as the drivers, who are from the low income group, rarely got their voice heard in the court of public opinion (mainstream media, or the govt’s mouthpiece, or even the express bus associations and unions).

From the pictures of the Sani Ekspres accident, we can easily see that the buffer area between the white lines and the road shoulders are too narrow. Expressways in developed countries with stringent safety requirements provide hard shoulders on both side of the carriageways which allow some extra flexibility should a motorist need to take evasive action, as it is a buffer area between the main thoroughfare and the edge of the road. Full-width hard shoulders together with rumble strips have been proven effective in the United States to prevent vehicles from veering off-course, and I have personally suggested the Head of MIROS few years ago on making rumble strips standard for long-distance highways to reduce the number of deaths resulting from drowsiness.

In this case, we should have been referring to the body of the bus, rather than the chassis in particular.

We are working to contact companies that provide double decker buses in Malaysia and hopefully we will get more technical information from them about the safety aspects of the buses.

TRANSIT believes that the first and most important solution is proper payment and treatment of drivers combined with safe driving practices.

Then we can look at safe road & highway design and the design of the buses themselves.

Thank you very much for the feedback.

Regards, Moaz for TRANSIT

1) the rawang case was a maintenance issue, after repavement of the road, the divided was a little too low so the contractor went on the “jack-up” the dividers within the stretch causing it to be abnormally higher than safe height.

2) the Sani case was not caused by the ordinary guard rail, it was a bridge guard rail with a bad end design, protrusion of the rails meant it was lethal and with no emergency lane at all, disaster was just awainting to happen. if it was any smaller vehicle then it would just probably killed everybody.

If a aircraft falls from a sky and kills everyone in it, should the aircraft maker be told to make a stronger plane to survive a fallout from the sky? Even in Europe or the rest of the world, the ECE r66 remains the standard of safety in passenger cabin because they know how to build and maintain a safer road, but again even the most technological advanced vehicle still suffers from fatal accidents, even autobahn highway has its fair share of fatalities (considering the amount of R&D and safety equipment installed).

I am saddened by this incident and urge for a better system within all which is involved, but nevertheless, we still have to be talking within a logical state