IT APPEARS that all our fears about the e-scooters should have been placed somewhere else. Just this month, we almost lost count as buses and trucks figure in road accidents. Some of these didn’t amount to news stories, but were just as fatal and were properly documented by netizens.
The latest of these mishaps happened just a day apart, a Ceres Liner bus collided with a private hospital’s ambulance in Barangay Carreta, Cebu City past 3 p.m. of Oct. 25, 2020. The day after, another of its bus hit a multicab on Vestil St., Barangay Mambaling, Cebu City.
In the Oct. 25 incident, the collision injured nine persons. The ambulance, owned by Chong Hua Hospital was on Gen. Maxilom Ave., while the Ceres Liner bus, which came from the Cebu City Hall area, was travelling northbound on J. De Veyra St.
Bus driver Benedicto Calduzo said he wasn’t speeding along J. De Veyra St. He said he did not notice the ambulance and its blaring siren. It was the ambulance, he said, that rammed the bus. In his attempt to evade the ambulance, he hit an electrical post instead.
Nothing in the accident wasn’t well documented as netizens who happened to be in the vicinity were quick to blast photographs. Investigators will definitely have a field day scouring for these pieces of evidence.
However, what should be a matter of concern is that a good number of these accidents involved Ceres Liner buses. Some of these accidents happened outside Metro Cebu; a good number of these were in the provincial highways.
Perhaps, it is time authorities call out the attention of the bus company after a looming pattern of accidents involving their fleet. While separate investigations are being done on each incident, an overarching investigation must be initiated on the Ceres Liner itself.
Unaddressed, the spate of accidents will continue to endanger the lives of Cebuanos, not only the passengers of its fleet, but the public at large. Authorities must look into the minimum requirements that the bus company asks of its drivers; the road-worthiness of these buses; among others.
As with the fight against Covid-19 and flooding, this is an urgent matter on public safety.