Thursday, January 11, 2007 Seares: Riding rough By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
OPERATORS of the bus line D'Rough Riders (DRR) probably never thought its name would be tied to killer road accidents.
After all, "rough riders" evokes hard work or heroic deed.
Rough rider is a horse rider who breaks wild horses so they can be ridden. Ted Roosevelt, the US president, formed a cavalry regiment called Rough Riders to fight in the 1898 Spanish-American War.
Bus line DRR seems to giving rough riders crap to their name. Its road record says its buses really run rough and lethal.
DRR buses figured in 211 accidents from 1993 to 1999, with 18 deaths and scores of injuries. Last Jan. 7, four persons were killed and 27 wounded in a DRR bus smashup with a 10-wheeler truck in Carmen, Cebu.
Contract, service
DRR seems to ignore contract between passengers and carrier and the public character of its service.
Maybe it thinks it can get away with it. LTO and LTFRB, for all their pious words about value of human lives in a speeding bus, haven't scared DRR.
They cancelled franchise of 14 DRR buses but are they sure the vehicles aren't among 60 other units running in its fleet? Are errant drivers grounded when most anyone rejected in one LTO office may be licensed in another?
DRR suffers from idle vehicles but it hasn't stopped the rough and dangerous runs.
A change of name---say, to D'Safe Drivers---may not help. But what irony it will make in a future killer accident.
