KEY POINTS:
A Korean diplomat has raised concern that a 20-year-old bus in which three women tourists from his country lost limbs in a crash on Saturday did not have seatbelts.
Auckland-based consul-general Joon-Hyung Kang said he would have hoped all New Zealand tour buses were equipped with seatbelts for the protection of their passengers, as he asserted was the case in his country.
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This forum debate is now closed. Here is a selection of your views:
Paul
I would rather they first install better bus drivers.
Lloyd Gretton
Seat belts are mandadatory on all korean buses. But no one wears them.
HP
How many more lives do we need to sacrifice before this seatbelt compulsory Act be set up?
David White
I did a PhD dissertation on the rollover stability of buses in the 1980s. In my opinion, seatbelts are not required on buses or coaches, except perhaps the 5 seats that do not have a seat in front of them (the 4 front seats, and the 1 seat at the back that looks down the aisle). The seatback should be sufficient to stop passengers in the case of a frontal impact. This is a typical over reaction to a coach crash. Passenger travel in buses and coaches is typically about 20 times safer than in a car. It is only because of the larger number of victims simultaneously, in the rare occasion of a coach crash, that such incidents get more news coverage. How many passengers died in this instance? None. It would be a mistake to respond to this with knee-jerk policy, purely to be seen to be doing something.The right things to do would be to investigate the real reason for the crash -- was it driver inexperience, or fatigue -- and consider whether it is reasonable that the windows fail in the event of a roll over, exposing the passengers to the moving road surface while other passengers are falling on top of them?
Ollie
I think they should be implemented into all buses, the same as they are in aircraft. If you arent up and walking around, you should be in your seat with a seatbelt on. Perhaps not in the slow moving city buses but definitely in faster highway tour buses. But seatbelts couldnt have prevented the horrific injuries to the Koreans whose arms had to be amputated.
Kevin Edwards
I was on a bus from Wellington to Petone. There were 20 standing passengers. As the bus zoomed along the motorway at 100 kph I was wondering what would happen in a sudden stop, how many passengers would have gone through the front windscreen? There should be no standing passengers when travelling on a motorway and all passengers should be wearing seatbelts.
Des Harris
Where else in the Western world would you have crap passenger service vehicles??... NZ of course, the Warehouse, Leaky houses, 2nd hand car imports, a revamped Eden Park with cheap temporary seats and 20 year old passenger service vehicles with no seat belts!!!... Pitiful!!
Barrington Womble
I must view the Korean gentlemans assertion concerning buses in Korea with great scepticism. I lived in South Korea for 10 months in 1997-98, and I did not observe a single seatbelt on any bus...and I took a lot of buses (and trains) while there, including tour buses. In fact, I thought it was amusing that a good deal of Korean "Ajimas" (older women) would "kimchee squat" on the bus as they travelled (resting on their haunches). In fact, public transportation in Korea was often overcrowded to the point that there were more people standing, than sitting. As to the question of mandating seatbelts: Yes, that would be ideal; but getting people to actually use them is nearly impossible to enforce. A better approach would be to address the standards for the tour bus drivers such as how many motoring hours do they perform, how much uninterrupted sleep before driving, how familiar with this particular route? Maybe these issues should be looked at before we discuss the unimaginable expense and inconvenience of placating a fingerpointer.
Stephen Chak
I support that seatbelts should be compulsory on all tourist buses. Last December, I joined a local tour to South Island for 6 days. The bus was quite old but it was equipped with seatbelts. Amongst 25 tourists in our group, I reckoned that only I took the initiative to wear the seatbelt and my wife as well after heeding on my advice. How many times we were told a seatbelt can save ones life in our TV advertisement. In considering so many people had been killed in a road accident every year, plus NZ road condition and many lunatics behind the wheel, I believe seatbelt can at least minimise injuries or even save life.
Kerry McKenzie
A few years ago, my car was rolled by another making a u-turn from parked(no signal) as I passed. My vehicle slid on its right side as I hung from my seatbelt - looking down I thought God bless whoever invented seatbelts. Clearly, I would have lost my right arm.
The other driver was fined $150 for not giving way ! Yes every vehicle should have seatbelts.
Barry Sinclair
I saw Lesley Wrights comments about the hypocrisy of wearing seat belts in buses in Korea...or lack thereof. I travel regularly, and catch the Airport Limo bus at Incheon airport..so next time I will recheck to see if I am still the only one that appears to click-clack my seatbelt on a bus in Korea. I suggest even if the bus was fitted with seatbelts, they would have been ignored by the Korean passengers, who flew from Korea on Korean airlines and booked a bus tour with a Korean owned operator operating a second hand Japanese bus with a Korean born driver. My point is not against any of these, least of all Korean people amongst whom I have many valued friends. The issue is that bad habits can kill. If legislation requires seatbelts, make sure that the operators enforce the local rules, not the habits of their valued customers. Good to see Kiwis ditched in to help out, or my story would be all one sided.
Reesby Buses
You will find that this model of bus (in the accident) is manufactured in Japan as a workers or local bus and restricted to roads with a speed limit of either 60 or 70 km per hour. It is banned from using motorways.Its suspension is very soft has no, or only one anti roll bar. Yet NZ legislation allows this bus to be imported into NZ and used on roads in excess of the above. The Japanese manufacturer will not allow its importers in NZ to import new buses with this restriction. We welcome LTSAs investigation as long as they consider what the Govt has allowed to be imported without the manufacturers certification for use in NZ conditions. It must be noted that there has been an increase in roll over in school buses approximately 50 per cent of school buses operating in NZ have the same manufacturers restriction as the bus involved in the accident. One wonders if because of cost savings Govt is allowing these buses to be used on NZ roads that they were not designed for. Our company has had experience operating these buses for school runs and we felt they were unsafe we did suspension modifications that we felt made them reasonable but still refused to take them outside the 70km speed area.
Pam Peters
Yes, most definitely there should be seat belts in buses. All buses. How come we pussyfoot around things like this but get so petty over smaller less important issues. Should be more women deciding these things!!!
Ian Hutchins
Any person travelling in a motor vehicle should be required to wear a seat belt that includes a diagonal strap. No exceptions! The busses operators give many reasons why not, but if they cannot provide such restraint then their bus is not to be operated.
Wendy Green
I believe seat belts should be compulsory on buses and coaches. I have seen too many buses taking kids to school where they are hurtling along at well past the speed limit and the kids have all been swinging from side to side. I think an accident like this was inevitable. A sad loss of life for no real reason.
JJ
I have ridden the bus (NZR Road Services, then CityLine, and now Stagecoach) from Pukekohe to Auckland every day for 20 years. I have often thought of this. It would admittedly be a nuisance to have to wear a seatbelt, and realistically I know either fares or rates would end up having to pay for them, but I would be so glad to have a seatbelt. Allowing for time on leave, the odd day driving, etc, I estimate that I have travelled 400,000 Km on the buses to and from Pukekohe. I wonder what my chances are of being in an accident - and of surviving one if I am not belted.
Kai Li
I think it is compulsory for buses to have seatbelts because there have been a lot of cases concerning death on a buses lately. There was one case in Taiwan 2 months ago about a mayors wife life in serious danger after their van crashed by a car and since then Taiwan has made it compulsory to wear seatbelts on buses. Although it is expensive to install seatbelts but I think life is worth more than anything else. How many more lives do we need to sacrifice before this seatbelt compulsory Act be set up?
Estelle Beder
Yes, it should be compulsory for buses to have seatbelts fitted and also for passengers to wear them.
John
Is there a "problem" or is just the usual kneejerk reaction NZers are famous for? Lets make a law against it. Would seatbelts have saved the arms of these tourists? How many bus passenger fatalities could have been avoided if seatbelts had been worn? Considering the number of serious head injuries in car crashes where is the clamour to have crash helmets made compulsory for car drivers and passengers? No lets make a lot of noise, jump to conclusions, make a law, and we will all feel better because we have "done something about it."
Matt
Seatbelts are required in cars, trucks, and just about every other form of transport, so why should buses be an exception? We continually see accidents in buses, both here, and overseas where wearing seatbelts would prevent people from flying out of their seats, and would greatly decrease the chance that they would lose limbs, as in the case of the Korean tourists. In the UK, seatbelts are compulsory for buses, must be worn and ultimately save lives.Only a few weeks back, we learnt of a horrific crash, not too unlike this one, where people lost limbs, and there was also a death. In the case of that crash, passengers were told to put their seatbelts on, and even though many did, they still received these injuries. Just imagine how much worse the result would have been had seatbelts not been fitted.
Carmen
I think it is not necessary for seatbelts on intercity buses as people even travel standing during peak hours. Seat belts could however be introduced on intracity buses.
Jeremy
The bus crash near Tokoroa was horrific - but one has to question the ease of setting up a tourist bus operation, and whether the accident was avoidable.
Jan
Yes I think there should be seatbelts in all buses not just tour buses. The lack of seatbelts in buses has bothered me for years ever since my children started school and travelled on school buses where not only were there no seatbelts but overcrowding on school buses with many children standing up in the aisles. Surely it confuses kids when they have to buckle up in cars and other vehicles and then dont, or should I say cant, in buses.
AS
In comparison with the large number of rural transport operators with aged bus fleets charged with the responsibility of ferrying our children to and from school, I would have thought tourist buses to be generally more upmarket. However, we can only hope that the vehicle testing authorities are doing their jobs and that, regardless of the age of the bus, vigorous safety standards are being met. Safety belts should undoubtedly be one of those standards.
Michelle
Around the town the buses are lucky to get 50km/h in our traffic and stop often so its not so important. Plus youll end up getting too cosy sticking your hand under the stranger near you while grappling for the belt buckle! All so you can get off in 5 minutes. For coach buses that drive all over our windy hilly state highways I think seatbelts are a must, especially the front seat passengers with the big glass window in front of them.
Dave Mann
Of course the bus does not need seatbelts fitted. A bus sliding along on its side is likely to do just as much harm to its passengers as when they are trapped in place by belts than if they arent. Maybe more. Stupidity of this magnitude is not mitigated by simply strapping the hapless passengers in. It is only by good fortune that the bus didnt collide head-on with a truck or go over a cliff. What needs to happen is that a driver (if he is found to be at fault) who turns over his bus on a straight piece of road should be imprisoned and stripped of enough of his assets to adequately recompense the poor people whose lives he has wrecked. If it was a mechanical fault, then the bus company should be sued out of existence and the same remedy applied to its proprietor(s). It is time we demanded some accountability. But, knowing our police force, with its maniac focus on extorting income out of people travelling safely and conscientiously at 111kph, they will probably be too busy to investigate this crash properly.
Lesley Wright
I have to laugh at this Korean assertion. I am currently living here, and although there are seatbelts in buses here there is no regulation to enforce that they are worn. In 3 years I have been asked to put on my belt only once. Riding buses here can often be a hair-raising experience as the drivers often seem as though they are driving at Le Mons. You would think that people would wear their seat belts automatically but hardly anyone ever does. In view of the high view of bus accidents that occur here every year and the number of injuries and fatalities, it seems a little hypocritical of this Korean to make critical statements about NZ. This comment is more indicative of cultural blindness than objective criticality.
S Lukey
It is compulsory for cars and trucks and I see no reason why it should not be the same for long distance buses. Inner city buses could be exempt but any buses travelling in traffic on motorways and at speed should have their passengers buckled in.
Kate Smith
It appears that NZ has become too lax in allowing just about anyone with a few dollars to start up their own business; in this case, a tourism venture catering for overseas visitors. NZ has gone the wrong way in maintaining a high standard of bus transportation no matter what size unit is involved. Gone are the days of the great bus services ie. Mt Cook for example with their state of the art buses. Now the roads are being bugged by old imported vehicles. NZ does not have a driver database where accidents, fines etc are recorded and a copy of such required by employers. The whole industry needs a huge overhaul - its never too late.
Neha
I think it more important to have a control on the import or use of old buses/coaches than having seat belts. Personally I have seen a lot of buses/coach on road (even on Victoria Street, Auckland City) which look shabby and at least 30-40 years old. Even if you add seat belts to such buses, it will not lower the chances of a similar tragedy.
Michael Hong
I think that seatbelt should be compulsory in a tourist bus.
