To whom do the responsibilities of passenger safety befall?

Singaporeans would be more acquainted to this piece of news. A primary school kid (elementary school, for those on the outside) got flung out of a mini-sized school bus and died of his injuries. Reports of him not putting on the safety belt in spite of reminders put a rather peculiar spotlight to something we wouldn't really think twice about.

I mean, come on, how many times as a civilian driver do you ask your passengers to belt up? Or, as a passenger, do you find that bloody strap irritating? I'm sure you do; luckily, I'm trained (or psycho'ed, as some of you might say) not to feel this way. It is there for a purpose, but, well, it's all up to the person himself.

Yet, it was on the back of such a notion that this issue was suddenly thrown up, all the way to, whoa, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) here. Again, for those on the outside, this is yet another one of Singapore's (exceedingly) numerous government agencies, responsible for everything from road taxes to road safety education. Anything with regards to public/private transportation and anything to do with something called "tarmac roads" go to this organisation. So for a little accident to reach the LTA within say, like 3 days, it must've been one real hoo-hah. And I'm not at all surprised, given the parent-power thing that would give rise to parent-mass-panic.

"Oh, my gawd, how can you not make my child belt up?!"

The above-mentioned is not at all exaggerating, I would say. If you had a kid, more or less you'll be worried. I mean, come on, being flung out of a mini school bus is not a joking matter (I'll save my net speak jokes for this one, it's not appropriate for this blog) so naturally all the parents are up in arms about this.

Then, the problem starts to surface menacingly. Of course, like I said in the second para of this post, in the school bus driver context you'll be hard-pressed to check each and every one of the kids to see if they had loosened their belt in the process. As a kid, naturally, it's something irritating to them... so they naturally loosen their life-savers.

Of course, I'm not saying all kids do not listen to instructions and would not even put them on, but they will just take their belts off after a short while even if told not to do so.

Herein lies a perennial problem, then. If the kids loosen their buckle and something happens, society would condemn the driver, not the kid; "Why did you let my poor little boy-boy/girl-girl loosen the belt? Where are your responsibilities as a driver?!" would be a statement far more likely to occur from a distraught parent, than, say, "Why, boy-boy, I ask you to put your seat belt on, yet you never do so?"

But is it fair to the drivers? Seriously, no. Remember, these blokes are drivers out to earn a living, and they don't earn too much per month. Couple that with the phenomenal rise in oil prices and everything else, and you're practically getting these blokes to drive for far less than they should, for all the work they put into mass transportation. So, is it fair to them? No. But is it fair to ask of the parents to at least, for (insert religious authority here)'s sake, educate their child in this? I would say yes.

Because, ultimately, the parents are responsible for the children. It is only fair, no?

Then we shift our focus to adult passengers.

Recently, a bloke who ran out of the country after causing the deaths of two of his relatives in a horrific crash, was arrested when he came back to Singapore, ready to 'fess up. The parents were aghast when the bloke said that the two kids did not buckle up, therefore he should not be made responsible for their deaths.

Let me cite an example from my current NS experience now. Transport Operators (as they usually call drivers) are made to check for the state of their vehicles (mostly because military vehicles are more prone to breakdowns) and for the behaviour of his passengers, BUT he is not empowered to control his passengers. This responsibility falls on his co-driver, who must be the highest-ranked passenger on the transport.

So, in short, while the driver must be prepared to assume technical responsibilities arising from vehicle breakdowns and crashes, his co-driver has to be responsible for everything else that occurs, including injuries to passengers because they were being rowdy and rude and whatnot.

So, in the civilian context, it's almost the same. It's only fair for the driver to assume responsibilities for causing the car crashes AND causing the injury/death of his, or other vehicles' passengers. BUT at the end of the day, passenger safety can only be at its best when all passengers do the necessary to ensure that, bar disastrous circumstances, they could at least walk off crashes without much injuries.

So, ultimately... passenger safety starts with the passengers. Simple enough?