I am most
fortunate to encounter 4 separate public breakdowns and minor road accidents on
SMRT public buses in less than a year.
It is such
experience that highlights the good work of some of our Singaporean bus drivers
and the severity of the lack of training given to our current fleet of transport
workers especially with the rising proportion of foreign workers into our public
transport service.
Of the 4 incidents
I encountered, two which involved road accidents occurred with the same bus route
and coincidentally both buses were driven by foreigners (not sure if they are
both PRs!) , a Malaysian and a Chinese national respectively. Honestly, in both
accidents, I could not tell whose fault it was—the bus captains or the other motorists.
The other two bus
break downs involved local drivers. The reason of me pointing out the nationalities
of these drivers being, of these four incidents, coincidentally again, only Singaporean
drivers could conduct proper breakdown procedure to the passengers involved, by
issuing complimentary bus tickets for passengers affected to continue free-of-charge
with their subsequent journey and also instructing passengers to tap out when
leaving the bus.
In my most recent
encounter of a bus break down, our Malay bus captain gave clear instructions
and explanation in English of each procedure that I realized, for the first
time, in addition to the given complimentary ticket, passengers actually received
a refund straight away when they tapped out of the affected bus. I always
thought that I have to travel to the bus terminal to get refund and because of
the time and cost involved, I never did.
In comparison, on
foreigner-driven buses, both bus drivers appeared hapless after the accident and
had to call back to SMRT or stopping other buses for advice. Passengers were told
to get off the bus with or without a complimentary ticket. And in one case, even
communication between the driver and the non-Mandarin speaking passengers was an
issue.
These accidents/breakdowns
on public buses and in comparison with different groups of drivers, highlighted
the importance of training the transport workers receive, to safeguard both the
safety and convenience of passengers. Training is especially crucial to
overseas-recruited drivers as driving in foreign road conditions with foreign
language and commuters are very challenging. Therefore, training provisions must
be sufficient to overseas-recruited transport workers to ensure the safety and
convenience of both the commuters and the drivers.
Lastly, I would
like to express my appreciation to those local drivers who have been upholding
the standard of our public bus service, in the challenge of ever increasing
number of motorists and public bus commuters.
