What’s up with people taking wrong decision?
Why people are taking the very wrong decision these days?
First it started when they decided to go with the most untrusted travel company Trust
and then the driver decided to speed up in a tough weather and a really tough and curvy road (Amman - Irbid).
Now the PSD Public Security Directorate is taking the wrong decision by not being bit aggressive with such cases, especially when the quick reaction to such dramatical acciedents is just a must.
Customs Department has a tracking device to track all incoming trucks with goods; can’t PSD install a such tracking device to track bus speeds?
Can’t they install a speed limiter? something that wont let the bus go further than 80km/h at max or even 70km/h, If they are not afraid of the speeding ticket nor being bit careful about the lives they are driving in the bus then someone have to have a control over them.
I wonder how many speed radar would it take to cover all Jordan, from Romtha to Aqaba? 100? for one every 50km or maybe we could duplicate that number, we already got the equipments and the manpower, why not for god sake? why the wrong decision?
Being strict when applying laws should go beyond doing it only in Amman, The Kingdom is one unity and what happen in Amman should NOT stay in Amman.
Why Whoever Mr responsible
cannot close Trust
company? or let me ask this question, How many MAN bus do we have in Jordan? 1000? 2000? How hard is it to have a policeman in every MAN bus and a Coaster bus? not a practical solution?
There should be a way to do it to reach the peace of mind when driving or getting in a bus in Jordan.
Another thing, Can the government be bit more transparent about this case? I’m deadly interested in knowing what would happen, how they will be sued and what would be the compensation to those who died or in hospitals now, who knows maybe me , my family or friends next.
Tags: coaster bus, customs department, speed radar, god sake, curvy road, man bus, road security, security directorate, speed limiter, wrong decision, bus speeds, many man, practical solution, speeding ticket, aqaba, peace of mind, amman, public security, travel company, trust company
First of all, i can’t right my name in English… it will lost the meaning…
Second of all: what i red in your post was interesting, but, you are putting the whole responsibility on the government.
and you didn’t mention the society role in here… the society has a big role, preventing accidents,
the government has a bigger role in applying the punishments.. who whomever caused or been and accessory in causing it…
Regards
Sorry but your suggestions above are all impractical and out of proportion. I think a simpler more effective long term (but more difficult) solution is to slowly retrain all bus, taxi + bus drivers. Also we need to review the conditions of our roads and highways because many of them are designed to cause accidents such as the particular descent + curve in Salhoub, some other highways such as Amman - Zarqa can no longer be called highways because so many houses and shops where built on the sides of the road, this is slowly happening to the airport highway instead there should have been an exclusion zone of 100m so buildings can only be built near highway exits and not the highway itself. The best solution for this is probably to get advise from some European highway agency on how to preserve our highways and how to sort out some of the engineering mistakes such as the Salhoub bridge corner and make them safer for drivers. Also we need to use better quality paint for our highways and roads as after a few weeks the paint being used more or less disappears and the road becomes simply a stretch of asphalt which ecnourages people to speed and change lanes and is probably one of the reasons for out terrible driving habits.
You can’t possibly expect passengers to be more satisfied if you limit the speed of buses to 80 km/h on the road between Amman and Aqaba. This means that if the bus drivers at the limit non-stop it will take it something like 4 hours and a half. Remember, non-stop! Realistically, it will be more like 5 hours and a half, if you account for the traffic, and when a trip becomes 5 hours, you can rest assured some passengers are going to demand to take a break to empty their bladder.
What is more practical though is to use programmable traffic regulation signs like the ones that are used in other countries (at least here in the US they are). These signs provide information to drivers about the road conditions.
For example, it could say “FOG AHEAD, REDUCE SPEED, SPEED LIMIT FOR CARS …, SPEED LIMIT FOR BUSES …”, or “WET CONDITIONS, ROAD SLIPPERY AHEAD, BUSES DON’T PASS”. You get the picture.
Regarding Trust, you are being unfair. This was simply the fault of the driver. There is practically nothing that the company itself can do to guarantee that a driver won’t take the decision on his own while driving the bus to speed in a manner that is dangerous to the road. As long as the drivers see a sign that says “90″ about the speed limit, they are gonna give themselves the freedom to go 90, no matter how bad the road is, they will treat it as if it is solely up to them to decide whether it’s not ok to driver at 80 or 90. BUT, if signs like the ones I talked about were used, they will know that the speed limit has now changed, or that they cannot pass, and that if they do they will be ticketed.
Here are a few facts about Trust that you should know:
- Drivers must all have valid licenses. The government allows them to drive buses, the company can’t give them its own license.
- In addition, drivers must pass special training at a driving academy before they are hired.
- By this point it’s safe to give these drivers a bus. Still, they have to be escorted by more than one driver on their first couple of trips to make sure that they are good drivers.
- The general manager of the company already checked the phone records twice for two days ago, and there were no calls made from the driver to the office saying anything was wrong with the bus. He even went on TV and said the records are open for anyone or the police to see if they want.
- This was the first trip that day from Aqaba. The driver had arrived to Aqaba the night before and had enough time to have a full 7-8 hour sleep. So go figure just what the hell it is that naqeeb el sawwaqeen was talking about when he said he had worked 10 hours straight before!!
- In the accident that happened last summer, the bus driver had a stroke. What would you have done to prevent this from happening if you were in charge of this company?
- Unlike the coaster bus drivers, these drivers are salaried. Therefore, they have no incentive to speed. In other words, a bus could leave empty and they would still get paid the same.
- Bus drivers are constantly being fired and hired. Some drivers in Trust were fired because of their speeding (the tachograph charts are checked by management every day). Other drivers were fired because of their bad conduct in front of the passengers.
- You can close the company, and accidents will continue to happen. Because the drivers who you’ve now put out of a job will still be on the road working for another company. The only difference is that you will have put other people out of their jobs.
Go on YouTube and search for “bus crash test” and you’ll see a few videos of testing metal and wooden side rails on the street which make sure an entire bus doesn’t go off the road. Were there such rails when this last bus went off the road? Could they have been better rails?
Finally, I really want to see the programmable light signs idea being implemented on the highway roads outside of Amman. This will save a lot of lives, and they are extremely helpful on the roads here in America.
A speed limiter on public transportation. Simple but brilliant!
an intelligent tachograph …
one with which drivers cannot fool police with, like the embedded tachographs currently available on all commercial vehicle.
As according to my observations, most of the drivers in Jordan have ready-made tachograph cards, and show the police those false “nice” one whenever the police would ask them about the tachograph cards, I saw this over 40 times with my bare eyes.
those have speed limiters that can be preset and beep all the time whenever exceeding the speed limit.
Anonymous, JETT Buses drive with the speed limits and reach within exactly 4 hours… despite their “creapy to my opinion” buses! Hint Hint: Trust’s Buses had exactly the same number of accidents as much as JETT had ever since it started working in 1964! or is it even more!!!
Dont believe me?! Go check both companies records at the traffic dept police.
Another Hint Hint: In entire Turkey (where there are 100s of Coach bus companies operating inside and outside turkey), ever since the intelligent tachographs were implemented, 7-8 years ago, only 4-5 speed accidents happened which is less than Trust alone (I am talking about an entire country here!) (as some other accidents were due to earthquakes and other catastrophic causes)… interesting, ha!?
Also, Mr Anonymous, yes, there are such rails on that particular part of the road, its just that the bus simple flied above them!!!!
About the programmable signs are not such a piece of cake as you think! those are part of something bigger entitled “Intelligent Traffic Information Systems” and have many other parts other than those signs. I worked and studied telematics my-self & know what am i talking about.
corrections: only 4-5 HORRIBLE speed accidents happened, and noted on a highscale at most at a the same bus company … sorry for the expression mistake.
You don’t have to have the traffic control network that major cities in the US have to be able to control a few programmable signs on the road. Some of these signs can be programmed by simply sending them a text message. All it takes is for someone to go check the road conditions in the morning and update the sign. Most companies that make these signs make high resolution models that are perfect for Arabic. These signs are big, and dominate the road when you’re driving, there’s almost no way to miss them and because they’re dynamic and change the driver knows to always read what they say.
Regarding the comparison to JETT. First, I just checked right this moment. Trust’s schedule says Aqaba-Irbid takes 3hrs and 45mins. You’re talking about a 15min difference over a distance of ~350 km. You’re talking about a ~6km/h difference in average speed. And you’re comparing back to 1964? Did the roads exist in their current conditions back then? Did the buses even go this fast back then? They used to make it to Amman in 4 hours back in 1964? Obviously not. Anyway, JETT buses have an excellent safety record I can’t deny that, knock on wood. But, I’m not sure what your point is, because the trips that Trust makes between the two cities are done under the speed limit too. The driver of a bus is not gonna listen to you or me about what speed he should go at, he’s gonna listen to himself and limit himself by what the road says, so maybe the speed limit has to be changed, but if your theory is that Trust buses can’t make it from Aqaba to Amman on company time without breaking the speed limit, that is a theory worth taking to the police and courts, and by all means if you care, do pursue it, but I can save you the trouble and tell you that it’s not true because the bus schedules didn’t come from air, they were set after making several trips. Finally, Trust travels most kilometers a year of all the companies at 4.5-5 million every year. JETT only travels quarter of that and not on all the roads that Trust travels on.