Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble
Beware overnight coaches to Malaysia
I came back this morning from Malaysia on an overnight coach from Perak after attending a friend’s wedding there. I came back safely but if you read the news, you will know that a coach traveling towards Singapore from Perak crashed the day before, killing nine people. And, among the dead was a guest, a 26 year-old doctor, at the same wedding I attended.
It seems that overnight coach drivers have a propensity to be reckless. I was fast asleep on my way to Perak but my friend who was beside me told me the coach driver was going as fast as cars on the North-South highway (that means at least 110km per hour). Of course, anecdotal evidence cannot be generalized but when one combines reckless speeding with poor visibility at night (and now, the rainy season), the recipe for disaster is complete.
I guess taking a day coach would at least eliminate the visibility factors for potential accidents. My friends and I got the news when we were still in Perak and it was mega dampener on our mood. I cannot imagine how my two friends who got married felt. This is perhaps the last time I’m going to sit on an overnight coach to Malaysia.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Aaron Ng on 08/12/2008 at 6:08 pm, and is filed under Ramblings. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 3 years ago
Before married with my wife, a Malaysian, as a typical Singaporean, taking night coach is the logical way to do for the efficient use of time.
A couple of times, I had gone over JB near midnight and surely I could get a ticket to go KL, from one of those sellers lobbying around the counters. Once, the promised time of boarding was 0100 but ended up boarding after 0200. My guess is that as long as there is demand for tickets, they will sell. After they sold a ticket, they will be busily calling and trying to secure a seat on some bus. My further guess is, when really no seats could be found, they will try to get those bus/driver who just returned from KL or some other places. Thus, I can imagine how dangerous this could be due to tiredness of both the human and the machine. Wonder anyone with insider info can verify or correct my guesses.
These few years, there were a number of new coach services which do not offer night coach, and even have speed limiting devices installed. Now, I am more comfortable to take day coach, but still prefer night train.
about 3 years ago
hello aaron! how are you! xD
i take the night coach all the time since home is in penang and that’s easily 10 hours of travelling at the very least though i’ve encountered 8.5 hours but that’s a story for another day
anyway what i wanted to say was, the majority of us who take the night coach, we just pray. really. hard.
i’ve seen people take turns to talk to the driver and i felt that that was a great initiative. sure, you lose a couple hours of sleep but that’s nothing when lives are at stake …not to mention the hoo-ha if a bus load of NUS and NTU undergraduates should meet with any unpleasing incidents along the expressway *touchwood
i would suggest flying airasia from senai or taking the day coach – the better providers like Aeroline and Nice practice good road manners and they keep to the speed limit
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