Khairpur bus accident: Bus drivers point to new speed-breaker as cause of crash

They refuse to believe that the driver’s carelessness could have played a part

KARACHI:

The Swat general bus stand in SITE wore a depressed look on Tuesday. Though everyone, from the drivers and cleaners to the loaders and managers, was busy in their routine, they worked silently, with the stereos of the buses switched off. Meanwhile, people surrounded the al Masoom coach stand to inquire about the passengers who lost their lives in the deadly accident at Khairpur earlier in the day.

“I was just 30 minutes behind the bus. We both stopped for a tea break at Sajjad Café in Sukkur, and they were leaving when we arrived,” Ali Ahmad, a driver of Buner’s Bilal Coach, told the other drivers who had gathered around him and his alternative driver Sarzamin Khan. The buses travelling to and from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa stick close together due to the fear of robbers, particularly at night and early in the morning.

“The National Highway Authority built a new, unpainted speed-breaker near the turn for the Theri bypass a few days ago, and most of the drivers did not know it was there,” explained Ahmad. “The bus hit it and overturned onto the other lane, where it was crushed by a speeding truck.” Ahmad stopped his bus at the site of the crash, but the sight of the bodies was too much for him to be able to stay for long.



The drivers at the bus stand expressed their concerns about the lives of the thousands of people using the roads that they called unfit even for pedestrians. “The entire track of the Super Highway between Hyderabad and Kot Sabzal has been dug up and the repair work has been extremely slow,” said Ahmad.

Meanwhile, the drivers who had seen the accident spot blamed the speed-breaker for the latest crash, refusing to believe that the driver’s carelessness could have played a part. “The driver is always at least careful enough to not put his own life at risk,” said Tahir Shah, a driver with Super Swabi Coaches who has been driving buses since 1987. “The drivers of long vehicles are particularly careful because you cannot afford to take risks when you have to control these large buses.”

He also refuted the common belief that long-haul drivers consume charas to keep going. “Charas has nothing to do with driving,” he said. “One can drive perfectly for five hours, and then we switch over to the alternative driver.” He added that driving in the early morning could be a bit difficult because of the lack of sleep. “We have two cleaners on each bus, and one of them keeps an eye out for any speed-breakers, potholes and vehicles coming from the opposite direction at all times.”

Responding to a question about people’s perceptions about bus drivers, Shah said, “If we drive slowly and carefully, the passengers get angry and if we get them to their destination earlier than expected, they praise us. But when we come across an accident, they’ll say that the driver was drunk. What are we to do?” Sarzamin added that even after seeing the accident on Tuesday, some of his passengers were pushing him to drive faster.

The ill-fated bus left Bahrain in Swat district on 5am on Monday and was supposed to reach Karachi at noon on Tuesday. According to bus service manager Waris Khan, the passengers were mostly from Bahrain, Fatehpur and Madyan in Swat. “I don’t know the exact number of passengers in the coach, because the people who book three or four seats often bring two or three children along, and the drivers also pick up passengers along the way,” he said. “Officially, the bus was carrying 51 passengers.” He added that the service had sent a bus to the spot, which is about eight hours away from Karachi. “This is the first accident in the 15 years since the al Masoom Coach Service has been operating,” he claimed.

Meanwhile, National Highway and Motorway Police official Rahim Masood asserted that the accident was the fault of the driver. “The lives of the passengers are in the hands of the driver,” he told The Express Tribune. “The condition of the roads is poor and there are diversions everywhere, so the driver has to be careful.”

Police raid NHA offices, return empty-handed

Khairpur police raided the offices of the National Highway Authority (NHA) near Karamabad to arrest the authority's officials, but were unsuccessful as the office was empty except a guard who was present there.

On Thursday, a large contingent of police raided the offices of the NHA near Karamabad, located around four kilometers from Khairpur. Earlier, the police had registered an FIR against the NHA at the B-Section police station following the tragic road accident at the National Highway that had claimed the lives of 59 people and left another 18 injured. The case was registered against the NHA officials for the inordinate delay in the construction of the highway and for their failure to provide an alternative route for traffic.

B-Section police station SHO Amir Hayat Yousafzai told The Express Tribune that it had become imperative for them to arrest the NHA officials and bring them to task. He added that Thursday's raid was unsuccessful as no one was present in the office except for a guard. SHO Yousafzai maintained that they would keep raiding the offices and the officials' residences until they were arrested.

Speaking about the victims' belongings, he said that the families were coming to the police station to claim the belongings and the police were handing them over after proper identification. He added that extra care was taken when handing over the belongings as the police did not want them to end up in the wrong hands.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 14^th, 2014.