What if it had been rush hour?

COMMUTER SAFETY
Letter from Raymund Koh Joo Guan

I REFER to the report about the serious accident between a tour bus and an SBS Transit double-decker bus along Selegie Road on Tuesday at around 10am (“Bus-ted”, April 15).

The entire front left portion of the tour bus was mangled beyond recognition, showing the amount of damage an accident causes at speeds of around just 60kmh.

Every day, during peak hours, public buses are packed to the point where passengers are standing on the buses’ front steps. The safety of commuters, especially those squashed at the front, is at stake. With the added weight of an overcrowded bus, the distance needed to break would definitely be more.

Should an accident similar to the Selegie Road one have involved a public bus packed to the brim, hitting another vehicle from behind, the passengers on the steps and around the left wheel arch area would likely be killed or badly injured. Those standing anywhere on the bus would likely be affected by whiplash.

Can the Land Transport Authority or the Public Transport Council address this issue? Why should bus commuters be put in jeopardy daily? Isn’t there a limit as to how many standing passengers a bus can safely carry? Can’t the public bus operators put more buses on the road to prevent overcrowding?

As a First World nation, to ensure the safety of all commuters, everyone should be seated and no one forced to stand. Why does our first-class public transport system allow for a bus crammed full of passengers?

From TODAY, Voices – Friday, 17-April-2009

Residents did not make complaints

Zul Othman, zul@mediacorp.com.sg

WHEN news of a seven-year-old girl’s four-storey fall through a broken railing first made headlines, many wondered why complaints from residents months earlier had gone unaddressed by the town council.

However, it has now transpired that neighbours other media had quoted as calling up the town council didn’t in fact make the calls. This is according to the independent committee appointed by the Tanjong Pagar Town Council to look into the incident.

The panel has completed interviewing all the parties involved, chairman Johnny Tan told Today, and the only party that maintains it had called up the authorities about the broken railing is the family of victim Siti Nur Aini.

But the family is not certain when they placed the call, so tracing the records has not been possible.

Added Mr Tan, principal partner of LT&T Architects and an accredited adjudicator: “At the moment, without any final conclusion, we have not done any assessment as to the accuracy of what the witnesses have said.”

The committee — appointed by Town Council chairman Koo Tsai Kee last month — includes Mr K Anparasan, a lawyer and deputy managing partner at law firm KhattarWong, and Mr Teh Hee Seang, an engineer and senior adviser at T Y LIN International.

“We have interviewed all the people involved, investigated the inspection regime of the town council and are now in the process of analysing the information,” said Mr Tan. The report will be released to the town council by the end of next month.

The Blangah Rise Primary School student’s grandfather, retiree Johari Mohd Siamu, told Today Siti was discharged from hospital on April 6 and is now “quite active”. She had suffered multiple fractures and bleeding in her abdomen from the fall on March 8. The medical bills were paid by the town council.

“She will be going for check-ups, but it looks like she will be going back to school on April 20,” said the 69-year-old.

From TODAY, News – Thursday, 16-April-2009