Safer express buses is a two-way street

Malay Mail

12-06-2025

JUNE 12 — The cheapest express bus seat ticket from Terengganu's Jerteh to Kuala Lumpur next week is RM55, according to an online booking system.
There was an accident up north near the jungles in a road cutting through the range which divides our peninsula, after most of us were asleep to be fresh for a Monday workday after the Raya Haji weekend. Killed, 15 future teachers. The story continues to develop as grieving families bury their young. The who, what, when, why and how heats up inside an intense inquest.
Let the afflicted, affected and charged to act, be with what they face.
I want to talk about us. The rest of us. Those who've been up this week to see the news unfold and read even if we do not write those online comments. Last month, this column spoke for both the dead in the FRU truck and the colliding lorry driver in court.
I upset an old acquaintance in a WhatsApp group, when I said he should cease his normative statements regarding the police transport vehicle disaster.
He went on and on wanting us to drive like the Japanese, stop at pedestrian crossings, have a culture where lorry, bus and truck drivers take pride in their work and quipped that black boxes and other technological solutions are already here. Use them!
He wants the right things to be done because they are the right things. A right-minded world will defend the righteous, doing apparently, the right things.
I said it costs votes. People dislike inconveniences and hate price spikes regardless of eventual benefits.
Societies inch rather than leap forward because social evolution hurts in the short run. Like medicine, they despise expensive corrections.
Really?
I pointed to a few things.
There was an accident up north near the jungles in a road cutting through the range which divides our peninsula, after most of us were asleep to be fresh for a Monday workday after the Raya Haji weekend. Killed, 15 future teachers. The story continues to develop as grieving families bury their young. The who, what, when, why and how heats up inside an intense inquest. — Bernama pic
Rear passengers belting up is law since 2009. How many of us ask our passengers in the back to buckle up?
Ask your next Grab or Bolt driver the percentage of passengers who do so.
My niece and nephew, they buckle up when seated behind me because they are used to it, living in France and Australia.
They are not doing so because they are from elsewhere and have better civic consciousness, they are typical teenagers. My niece thinks social advocacy is a lame vocation with no commercial purpose. Also, that I am lame for being me.
They buckle up because in Melbourne they'll get a RM1,000 (A$370) fine. It's not merely a press statement. Laws are enforced.
Yet 16 years after our 'enforcement', scant regard is paid. Which speaks more about us.
Not discouraged by the rear passenger buckle-up adoption, our government made child-car seats mandatory in 2020. I'm betting it is even less observed than buckled up rear passengers.
One, cars come with the necessary seat belts at the back, and two getting young children to agree to be buckled in purpose-built, industry approved contraptions is a stupendous challenge.
More evident are parents letting their three-year-olds sit in the front, and also at times on the driver's lap.
And yes, long before a summary, the acquaintance asked me to stop being a pompous ass.
You might share his views. Why associate private vehicle transgresses with the sins of goods and people transporters and their drivers? Because we do not live in a bubble.
More importantly, we cannot choose to live in a bubble and expect the world to do the things we care little about and be sanctimonious when body counts rise.
We are all in it, together.
The unbearable lightness of travel
A friend joked once, he's never rode in a passenger plane but he has been in an airbus. He had just got off an express bus.
In January, I was one of five who got off an express bus at a rest-stop before reaching Kuala Lumpur because the driver was erratic, drove hard and shouted his long phone conversations while at the wheel.
There are stories galore from a cubicle near you, about how express drivers express themselves a bit too much on the highways.
Yet another safety pundit rolled out wisdom, that if airlines do not get oddballs to fly planes because lives are at stake, then express buses should have better drivers. Yes, yes, except the pay chasm is considerable and there are no career advancements for express bus drivers.
Bus drivers live in city PPRs and airline pilots in Bangsar condos.
People do not call home to tell family they are dating an express bus driver.
When drivers wait between long distance slogs in parking lots or petrol stations puffing cigarettes and relying on the revitalisation wonders of sweetened coffees, and not a necessary rest in a motel, they know they are just bus drivers.
The Ministry of Transport ordered 1,600 more buses over the next three years, expect driver shortage to shoot up, more so over the holidays.
Buses keep us connected, disconnection is not an option
For decades, express bus operators claim our ticket prices are too low to run an efficient operation.
I mentioned RM55 from Jerteh to Kuala Lumpur. Imagine if it was RM110, twice the fare.
The ministry of transport (MOT) is ordering speed delimiters, which express bus operators must fix and maintain. MOT must supervise and liaise with the companies. Those black boxes and other requirements add to things.
Driving slower and cautiously means longer rides and fewer trips per day. Asking for more tests, calibration and requirements lead to fewer days on the road. MOT limits express buses to 10-year life-spans unless they procure a special permit.
Longer rides with more rest and safety features require more bus drivers and back-up drivers who then require accommodations with overnight stays.
Every line added, every good measure, every make it better and safer adds to operational costs. Who pays for these?
Even now, the allowed 10 per cent hike during festive holidays, makes customers cringe.
There are the off-peak seasons, where the companies must continue serving even with far fewer passengers. They balance the sub-optimum period losses with weekend and festive over-capacity.
There is the counter argument, that the operators are bent on profits and they cut corners, literally.
The truth is always somewhere in-between.
Yet, unless the state delivers the service, profit margins matter as an incentive.
As much as express bus companies are pinatas for the public after deaths, the cynical reality which annoys the crap out of the righteous remains, the express bus operations keep millions ticking on.
The ticket price increases from a quarter of a century ago to today are miniscule compared to the compounded inflation figures over the period.
The coalition in and out of power are forewarned, a fickle electorate will not tolerate price increases.
This is where the debate actually awaits. Honest takers are most welcome to participate in the solution.
There is the other track to take. Limit land travel to safe extremely regulated methods and see travel as a luxury.
Drivers are well-compensated and arduously avoid tickets which bar them from a stable highly unionised profession. Be careful what you wish for.
The ECRL has a station in Jerteh. Operations begin in 2027, though the ticket price to Kuala Lumpur remains unannounced. Let's see how express buses fare then, or is fare the operative word?
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.