A comfortable ride on a public transport bus has long become a forgotten luxury for the common man on the street. Unnecessarily long waits at certain bus stops to pack in as many passengers as possible, holding your breath as the bus races and dangerously overtakes others, squeezing between two lines of standing passengers to move forward or backward as the conductor repeatedly instructs, and getting on or off the bus before it has come to a complete halt are some of the daily hassles commuters silently endure. They have become normalised that hardly anyone dares to complain.
In fact, when was the last time you received the balance of three rupees from your Rs. 27 ticket, or four rupees from your Rs. 56 or Rs. 66 ticket — or even dared to ask for it? If it is long-distance travel, the cash balance that you have to forgo can be much higher. Accustomed to the harsh realities of daily travel, people only hope to reach their destination in “one piece.” However, given the recent spate of fatal accidents involving buses, one may even wonder whether that, too, is becoming too much to ask.
At least one person died and 30 others were injured when a private bus operating between Welimada and Bandarawela ran off the road at Dayaraba, on May 10. Preliminary police investigations suggest that excessive speed and reckless driving caused the crash.
It was followed by the tragic bus accident in Gerandi Ella at Ramboda, Kotmale, which claimed 23 lives, and injured around 40 more on May 11. A Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) bus operating from Kataragama to Kurunegala via Nuwara Eliya veered off the road and plunged down a precipice. While a special probe is under way, police suspect the bus was overloaded and that the driver might have fallen asleep due to excessive fatigue.
Again on May 12, a bus transporting a group of pilgrims veered off the road and fell into a roadside precipice in Aladeniya, Kandy, leaving 29 passengers injured. Investigations into the incident suggest that a brake failure might have caused the accident.
These back-to-back road accidents demand a deeper look at the current state of the country’s bus network and overall road safety measures. According to statistics of the Traffic Police Division, the total number of road accidents surged to 25,299 last year, the highest in five years, with 2,521 fatalities. From January to May 13 this year, 902 fatal accidents have been reported, with 965 deaths. This means that nearly seven people meet untimely deaths on our roads every single day.
Unpleasant reality
According to a police report, 2,029 bus accidents had been recorded from January to November, 2024 of which 222 were fatal. Private buses were involved in 1,510 accidents, while 519 accidents were attributed to buses operated by the state-owned Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB). The statistics reflect a troubling pattern no authority can overlook as “isolated incidents”.
Some decorations block the driver’s view
It was reported last week that the Police, responding to the surge in bus accidents, have decided to step up random night-inspections of long-distance buses on selected main roads to nab errand bus drivers and operators. While reckless driving and excessive speed are leading causes of accidents, alcohol and drug addiction and driver fatigue and mechanical faults in poorly maintained buses have also put the lives of passengers in danger.
A former State Minister told the media in 2021 that about 80 percent of private bus drivers in Colombo and its suburbs were under the influence of drugs while on duty. Lanka Private Bus Owners’ Association President Gemunu Wijeratne has raised the same alarm several times. In 2019, he went on record, saying that 50 percent of bus drivers and conductors in the country were addicted to drugs. That might also help explain the undisciplined, even rowdy, behaviour some of them display on the roads.
On the other hand, social research suggests that substance use may be linked to the demanding nature of bus drivers’ and conductors’ jobs, which often involve long hours with little to no rest.
They work under minimal facilities, coping with all the other struggles of life. For long-haul bus routes, drivers can be assigned in shifts, as seen in many countries, so each gets adequate rest. Better working conditions, regular health checks, random drug tests and proper training on road safety and responsibility will help improve their mental and physical fitness.
Racing one another
Intervention is also needed to control overloading and the unruly competition, especially among private bus operators. Talk of an integrated time-table has dragged on for long, but yet to materialise.
Gerandi Ella bus accident
While racing one another, bus drivers often drive aggressively, putting everyone on board and on the road at risk. Sometimes, in their hurry to overtake, they end up running the bus right over the pavement! When buses swerve around corners at crazy speeds, passengers cling to the iron bars with both hands to stay upright. The one sitting on the right side of the front-left seat, — often missing an armrest— is especially at risk of falling, and it happens more often than you would think.
Police have been cracking down on wayward bus drivers from time to time, but some offenders seem to have their own ways of getting off the hook to repeat the same offences more defiantly. It was not long ago that the Police launched a special operation to crack down on illegal modifications on buses that block the driver’s view and pose a danger to passengers, but they later backed down, giving in to the pressure from bus owners’ associations and other groups.
The poor condition of public transport buses has been a long-standing discussion in the country. Transport officials also admit that buses built on lorry chassis fall well short of modern standards of passenger-comfort. Many buses are over 20 years and poorly-maintained. Their drivers hardly wear seat belts, and some buses do not even have them to begin with. When it comes to safety, passengers, too, have a responsibility to corporate with the crew and avoid standing in the doorway or on the footboard.
