Deadly bus crash 7 fatalities

[bikkuri bahn]

Bus crash in Gunma leaves seven dead, 39 injured

Driver claims to have been asleep as vehicle was impaled by wall

Kyodo

 

MAEBASHI, Gunma Pref. — Golden Week got off to a horrific start Sunday as a bus packed with tourists headed for Tokyo Disneyland ran edgewise into a wall on an expressway in Gunma Prefecture, killing seven people and injuring 39 others.

 

The bus, which left Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, at around 10 p.m. Saturday with 45 passengers, plowed into the leading edge of a 3-meter-high guard wall on the Kanetsu Expressway in Fujioka at around 4:40 a.m., police said. The wall sliced through its left side.

 

According to its final speedometer reading, the bus may have hit the wall at 92 kph.

 

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120430a1.html

 

This has been the leading TV news story this holiday weekend.  These supercheap overnight bus services have been popping up like so many mushrooms these last several years now.  I avoid them, more from the comfort aspect (overheated interiors, ill fitting seats, dark interiors but many jolts and vibrations etc.), but I know you are gambling with safety also.  Note that the route this bus takes more or less is the same as the discontinued JR night express "Noto"- it's buses like these that in part led to the demise of night trains.  People value cheapness over safety, apparently.

[spacecadet]

Driver claims to have been asleep as vehicle was impaled by wall

 

It's interesting the way this is phrased - maybe it's a translation quirk but I've seen it written like this elsewhere too.  It's almost like they don't believe he was actually asleep, and that if he was, that would somehow excuse the accident.  Like saying you were blinded by sun glare, or the signage was confusing or something.  It sure seems to me that if the driver was asleep, it's his fault!

 

Very sad for those people, though.  We had a very similar accident here in New York a year or so ago, and it was the same sort of thing too - cheap bus line, not enough regulation.  We still have problems with them; the government is trying to shut some of them down but some of them are actually refusing to be shut down!  They just keep operating despite the shutdown orders.

 

Well, the thing about Japan (and one thing I like about the country) is that something like this can be the death knell of an entire industry.  People do change behavior based on consequences they see and they hold companies accountable.  I'd be surprised if people keep riding cheap bus lines like this there after this, whereas here, people are more than willing to *knowingly* take their lives into their hands to save a few bucks.  In Japan there's always an initial assumption that professionals will do their jobs properly.  Once it's proven that they haven't, it takes a long time to rebuild that trust.

[bikkuri bahn]

JAPAN - The driver arrested for causing the bus accident that killed seven passengers on the Kanetsu Expressway on Sunday arranged another bus tour for Chinese tourists during his rest break at a hotel, according to sources close to a bus company he was working for.

 

The Gunma prefectural police suspected that the driver, 43-year-old Kazan Kono, did not get sufficient rest as a result of engaging in private business during his break.

http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20120505-343979.html

 

Many people who ride these buses see the razor thin margins of safety, and tell others to avoid using the services.  However, the fares are so cheap that people keep coming back, especially the young, and others financially strapped.  Time for a govt. crackdown.