Cost Trumps Lives in Safety on Coaches?

The mangled taxi after a coach plowed into it in Tsing Yi last Friday

In the early hours of last Friday morning, November 30, there was a fatal accident on the Cheung Tsing Highway in Tsing Yi that killed six people and injured 31.

A taxi had stopped on the side of the highway with its hazard lights on when moments later a coach carrying airport staff to work, crashed into it.

It turns out the 62-year-old driver, Fok Chi-sum, had been involved in a staggering seven other incidents of careless driving and speeding, including an accident (with no casualties) weeks before this fatal crash. Fok succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday.

The coach driver had been working long hours before the crash

Apart from his poor driving record, he had also been working long 12-hour shifts without a proper four-hour rest in between shifts.

Why is it that people who do what are considered lowly-paid jobs have the most dangerous ones that can affect people's lives?

In any event, there are calls for coaches to have seat belts installed in them, but already operators have rebuffed the suggestion, saying it's too costly.

Tang Chi-keung, vice-chairman of the Public Omnibus Operators Association, said industry representatives had agreed at a meeting with the government to install seat belts on new coaches, but not existing ones.

"It's not as easy as just installing the belts. You need to tear up the flooring, replace the seats and then run safety tests," he said after the meeting.

"Doing so on an old vehicle could cost you HK$300,000 (US$38,382). The vehicle itself may only be worth some HK$100,000 to HK$200,000. It's not worth it."

Calls for retrofitting seat belts on coaches has been nixed

On new coaches, the coast would still be about HK$150,000," Tang added and that of the 7,000 coaches in Hong Kong, about half already had seat belts.

So cost trumps lives? Tell that to the grieving families of the victims of last week's crash. They were innocent victims who were only their way to work. It turns out four people, including the driver were thrown out of the coach -- were they wearing seat belts?

Passengers should have the choice to wear seat belts or not -- and so they should be provided in the coaches. Coach operators are working on very thin margins, but at the same time seat belts are an investment, not a liability.

For almost eight years I took a coach to work in the New Territories every morning and I made sure I was strapped in. However, there were sometimes where there were no seat belts or the ones provided were faulty or didn't seem secure. This is not acceptable.

Perhaps even worse is that the Hong Kong government is agreeing with the coach operators to not retro-fit old coaches with seat belts. How can that be? Is the government kowtowing to these coach operators for fear of not getting their support, like the taxi associations?

Even transport minister Frank Chan Fan said today 111 people had been killed in traffic accidents in the first 10 months of this year, up from 86 in the same period last year -- a jump of almost 30 percent.

Surely safety is more important than cost? 

Crash Course on Deadly Statistics

One of the many road accidents that happen daily across China

The World Health Organization has revealed the shocking statistic of 10,000 children killed in traffic accidents in China each year. This is directly due to the ongoing increase of car ownership.

"That's almost 30 [children dying in road accidents] each day... They're kids just doing what normal kids do -- traveling in cars with their families, walking or playing in the streets, going to and from school," said Bernhard Schwartlander, a WHO representative who spoke at the UN's Global Road Safety Week, held in Beijing.

In the majority of cases, that's 10,000 families who have lost their only child.

He urged lawmakers to put stricter road safety laws in place and ensure they were enforced. Schwartlander also called on manufacturers to produce good quality cars, and parents to make sure their children wore helmets when riding bicycles.

The figure did not take into account children who were injured by not killed.

The WHO said at least 200,000 people died each year on the mainland due to road accidents. Interesting to note the figure was much higher than the country's official statistics.

The Ministry of Public Security said about 87,200 people died in about 426,000 road accidents in the first 10 months of last year.

Last year a global study published in medical journal The Lancet found road injuries were the third-leading cause of death in China, ahead of a range of cancers, compared with eighth in the developing world.

Experts said the high fatality rate was due to poor driving behaviour exacerbated by the rapid rise on car ownership. They also said traffic accidents were becoming more alarming than other disasters like mining accidents.

In 2003 there were 24 million cars in China, but by last year it had grown to 154 million, according to the public security ministry.

Thirty-one cities had more than 1 million cars each. Eight cities including Shanghai, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hanzhou had over 2 million cars, while Beijing had 5 million.

One would think these statistic would shock mainlanders into improving their driving habits, but until an accident happens to them, they will not care.

Meanwhile those who grieve loved ones they lost probably have anger bubbling near the surface. And until they explode with frustration and grief, the public will never understand how crucial it is to drive safely on the roads.