Road safety network calls for ban of double-deck buses during Songkran festival



BANGKOK: -- The Network of Road Safety and academics Tuesday called on transport ministry to ban the use of double-deck buses as supplementary buses during the Songkran festival, citing unsafety reason of the buses.

They said most drivers of these double-deck buses have no experience on the hilly routes and also drive over speed limits.

The call by the Network of Road Safety and academics came as millions of Songkran celebrants are expected to travel by buses to return homes and to celebrate the Thai traditional New Year in upcountry.

The high travels during the Songkran period prompt bus operators and transport ministry to increase buses to serve the travel demand, and double-deck buses are drawn in to give service as supplementary buses though drivers are not experienced in driving in hilly and curvy roads in the North.

The Network of Road Safety said road mishaps during the past five months showed that fatalities in road accidents engaged mostly with double-deck buses with 97 deaths during the period.

As most double-deck buses are supplementary buses and not regular buses, they are posed to high risk of accidents in risky routes such as in the North which most roads are hilly and curvy.

It said that so far there is none relevant government agency coming out to supervise the safety standard of public transport buses during the Songkran festival when people chartered buses for travel.

It called on bus operators and transport officials to be serious with the safety of these double-deck buses by banning service of these buses during the period to prevent accidents.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/road-safety-network-calls-ban-double-deck-buses-songkran-festival/


-- Thai PBS 2014-04-02

i have to say they do look like an intelligent bunch, ban double deckers during songkran, that will fix the problem.

People who dont have a clue have the lives of others in the palm of their hands

Instead of just putting a patch for Songkran get serious and fix the problem for ever. Train the drivers properly for a start

Pathetic !

Let's blame the Songkran carnage on double deckers. I'll bet that will really annoy the evil spirits who as we are repeatedly told are responsible for all types of accidents.

The Thai double decker bus. A creature from another time dimension in the past. There are just as many single decker Thai buses that are unsafe.

Ban them, period. They are way too high/topheavy for their wheelbase.

completely missing the point. there have to be some smart, logical, educated, capable people in thailand... some people who actually care and want to do something about the carnage on the roads... but where are they?!

When are they going to start the body count this year. It's always wrong but interesting to follow.

Don't ban them, just put speed limiters on all buses and trucks. Also, tighter training and licensing for drivers. There's enough checkpoints in this country to quickly weed out the untrained drivers.

completely missing the point. there have to be some smart, logical, educated, capable people in thailand... some people who actually care and want to do something about the carnage on the roads... but where are they?!

Dubai

I wonder if all 7 on this brain trust committee voted for this astute recommendation? Unbelivable, but not surprising when the source is taken into account.

Why not also teach drivers to drive their cars

and

Motorcyclists how to ride their bikes.

Most of all... Teach Thais about road rules and that also includes the Police... Its laughable to watch people on bikes with no helmets ride past a police person... Nobody give 2 hoots.

There is a reason why Thailand has a bad reputation in Transport.

ban double deckers during songkran will save the life of the persons whom cannot seat on the upper deck. Lucky one.

Better idea : Ban all cars , buses , trucks during songkran ...... ( April's fool was yesterday) ..... Thailand or the art of pushing the problem away just for a few days to lower statistics.

So now it's the double-decker buses.

Let's hope that not many accidents will involve Isuzu DMax..............it may be very quiet after Songkran 2014

BS of course.........the problem is often the loading of the bus.

If you take a double-decker bus in Europe, travelers tend to take a normal amount of luggage with them (let's 20-25 kg each). Stow this amount (1500-1800 kg) in the luggage-compartments and your bus is way more stabil.

Thai tend to travel light and if possible, they like to take everything with them in the passengers' area.

In other words: the buses are usually loaded in the wrong way and for a 16ton weighing vehicle, loading is very important....as are the brakes and the driving skills and yes.......a speed-limiter is necessary too.

Until they accept the fact that lack of driver training is the biggest problem on the Thai roads, and actually address the issue, then nothing will change, regardless of all these short-term, knee-jerk decisions that the so-called experts make.

Useless band aid solution. Driver ed and training, compulsory vehicle maintenance, less yaba and booze

Since the vast majority of road deaths during Songkran are drunk males speeding on motorcycles and not wearing helmets, banning double-decker buses makes perfect sense.

Is this post a wind up? What a bunch of morons.

one wonders how a whole group of apparently intelligent people can mutually kid themselves that this is a practical option.over S/K the Thai public transport system is stretched to breaking point....how on earth would removing a substantial slice of that system do any good. Period of enforcement might help a bit.....but

It seems that the police's idea of that is to sit in a tent outside the police station and chat and snack with the locals.

This just shows how utterly incompetent those involved with road safety are. - i mean it's not as if they don[]'t have info and solutions avaialble to them - these kind of dictums and pronouncements are just a symptom of a bunch of people who have a job they aren't qualified to do, but rather than get sacked from a cushy life-style they come up with crap like this to make it look as if they are working on something. IDIOTS!

Ban the double decker buses, and one would have to double the single buses on the road to meet the demand, or else tens of thousands will be stranded, or resort to the ebven more dangerous minivans.

What on earth will that achieve by banning double decker buses during songkran? or even banning them at all!?

All vehicles in Thailand a being driven by the same irresponsible, UN-trained, care free bunch of people.

If the government wants to reduce death on the road then instead of manipulating statistics they need to enforce strict driving examinations and enforce more thorough training giving people more knowledge of how to drive safely and correctly.

What I have seen with the driving tests here are that I genuinely feel a trained ape could pass any of them given time.

As most posters are saying, don't just come up with a 'quick fix solution', start to properly train, regulate and punish operators of public transport.

These double deckers are converted in Thailand without any proper regulatory control. They are top heavy and crash much more easily than single deck buses which have a standard design.

Banning will make no difference as the pressure on public transport is too much over Songkran.

The Thai double decker bus. A creature from another time dimension in the past. There are just as many single decker Thai buses that are unsafe.

The main problem with these double decker busses is that many are fitted to existing single deck chassis that are not suitable for double deck bodies.

These nape-of-the-neck are simply a waste of time. Phasing out the bases mitt help but you aren't going to find an overnight solution, besides most of these buses are already booked for the season; it wold cause chaos.....they should know better.

Is it the drivers or buses that are unsafe? Do the buses suddenly become safe after songkran.

Academic dimwits.

Road Safety Network.

What on earth do they do in their working hours ?

What do they see ?

What do thy think ?

What do they know ?

Are they educated ?

Beggars belief this network exists.

The Thais are natural born drivers and therefore they do not need to listening to what is done in other countries.

Nobody knows more about road safety than the Thais.

The Thai police are probably the only police corps in the whole world that know driving with lights turned on is unsafe, they order the lights shut off if they see it.

The rest of the world should look to Thailand to learn how road safety should be tackled.

I note the guy on the left of the commitee is seemingly on his mobile phone,so paying full attention to the problem,or maybe he just realised how futile the whole meeting is.