Regulators causing accidents
Almost every week, it seems, we read about buses falling off mountain roads due to failed brakes; or skidding off highways because of tires worn bald; or colliding with other vehicles because of mechanical problems or because their drivers were speeding or fell asleep at the wheel from utter fatigue in their effort to earn a more decent income—resulting in deaths and injuries.
Isn’t it about time we jail those regulators who have been blind to obviously worn bus tires, chassis numbers not matching registrations, bus companies not paying their drivers a decent salary, etc.? Is there no law to jail these alleged see-no-evil people whose supposed blindness has already killed and maimed so many victims?
And can’t the same penalty be dealt to those regulators of interisland vessels who habitually allow the overloading of passenger vessels; and to owners or contractors of ships and barges involved in repeated mishaps, among which, a single shamefully tragic incident in 1987 stands on record as the world’s worst peacetime maritime sinking (passenger ship MV Doña Paz) that cost the lives of the biggest number of people ever? Compare the loss of lives in widely disparate but well-known incidents: Titanic sinking-1,517; Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor-2,402; 9/11 bombing-2,974; Doña Paz-4,375.
Of the five incidents involving ships of the same company that owned the overloaded Doña Paz, three reportedly risked a voyage through violent weather, leading some people to wonder why the captains sailed into deadly typhoons. Was it upon the radioed direct orders of safely land-based management to avoid huge operating losses from a delayed voyage? Or was an incentive and penalty system in place that cost them dearly not to complete a schedule on time? Or was it a case of cost-cutting to stay within range of cheap salaries, resulting in inept people being hired to take charge of the lives of thousands of passengers? The other two incidents—the most recent one was in August 2013—involved collisions, again triggering questions on the possible ineptitude or lackadaisical attitude of the ships’ officers in charge of the ship’s safety.
For whatever reason, don’t the regulators realize that the land and sea incidents have already caused the loss of more than 5,000 lives, and yet there have been no publicly visible steps taken to continuously ensure the prevention of such deadly incidents in the future or to compel the regulators to be more effective in their roles on a more permanent basis?
Are we as a people so unfeeling we can permit the trading of lives and human anguish as a commodity that can be coldly placed in harm’s way to improve the chances of increasing private profit?
Congress should pass laws to make sure that regulators do their jobs more diligently all the time. Their job diligence—or lack of it—literally has life-and-death consequences for thousands of future passengers.
—BENJAMIN AGUNOD,
