Buses Put Profits Before Passengers
As many as one in three taxi accidents are the result of tyre-bursts, but affordable safety devices are not used
A storm is brewing about the way that buses and taxis ignore cheap and simple ways of curbing the hundreds of passenger deaths they cause every year. There is particular concern about the safety of the 12,000 taxis that transport children to and from school each day.
A tyre burst causes one in every five fatal taxi accidents. These tyre-burst accidents could also be cut dramatically by cheap, simple devices that stop a burst tyre coming off the rim – so that the driver can keep control of the vehicle. But bus and taxi companies are happy to save the money that each of these devices cost, and risk the lives of passengers and drivers to make a bit more profit.
Businesses have proved how well anti tyre-burst devices work – they are used on 90% of all cash-carrying vehicles (especially after the daring cash heist near Bronkhorstspruit by gangster Collin Chauke a few years ago). However, only 5% of vehicles carrying schoolchildren are fitted with these devices.
This is a worrying indication of where these companies put their priorities – especially when as many as one in three taxi accidents are the result of tyre bursts and the proportion of tyre-related accidents on our roads has climbed from 6,5& in 1995 to almost 9% in 2002.
There are, of course, those companies and schools who have done the right thing, but usually after their scholars, employees or customers have died:
- Mining company Gold Fields installed anti tyre-burst devices on taxis after 16 of their mineworkers from East Driefontein and a further 14 from Beatrix mine were killed in tyre-related taxi accidents;
- Algoa Coaches installed the devices on its buses after passengers died in an accident involving a tyre blow-out;
- A number of schools who had experienced tragic tyre-related accidents also now fit the anti tyre-burst device (these schools include Grayston Preparatory School, Eshowe High School, Parktown Grils High and St Andrew’s College, Grahamstown).
Just last month, three teachers and six girls were killed on their way to a netball tournament, when the driver lost control of the vehicle after a tyre burst.
But some transport companies seem to regard passenger deaths as an acceptable business risk. Unitrans, for instance, fits anti tyre-burst devices on all its trucks carrying dangerous chemicals (they will be heavily fined if a chemical spill damages the environment). But is does not fit the dame devices on the passenger-carrying buses operated by the bus company it owns.
A leading transport attorney has pointed out that failure to fit these devices could be labeled as negligence in many circumstances, if an accident was to happen. Anti tyre-burst devices are in fact already part of the transport operator Code of Practice, to reduce the risk of accidents.
Passengers aside, transport companies have a clear legal responsibility for the safety of their drivers. The Occupational Health and Safety Act says that employers must take steps to “eliminate or mitigate any hazard or potential hazard” to the safety or health of employees.
For more information about these anti tyre-burst devices, visit: www.tyrelok.com
