Bus crashes caused by drivers ‘falling asleep at the wheel'

The Ministry of Transport has decided to tighten the management of long-distance buses after finding that drivers were to blame for a series of serious road accidents over the past two months.

Director of the min-istry\'s Transport Department Tran Ngoc Thanh said investigations had shown that recent long-distance bus accidents had occurred when drivers fell asleep at the wheel.

More than 23,000 accidents happened across the country in the first half of this year, killing 5,660 people and injuring 25,660. Buses were involved in 80 per cent of those accidents, according to ministry statistics.

Accidents often occurred between 5 and 7am in the central provinces of Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Thua Thien-Hue, because at that time, the drivers were exhausted after driving continuously overnight, said Thanh.

"The law regulates that a coach driver must not drive continuously for more than four hours, and even then, is only allowed to drive a maximum of 10 hours a day, but this is difficult to enforce," he said.

Director of the Ha Tinh provincial Transport Police Department Nguyen Thanh Bao said that Highway No 1, which runs through the province, was the longest highway in the country, and drivers were often tired having been on the road for long periods of time.

"We issue strict penalties for traffic violations, and focus on coaches, container trucks and motorcycles, but accidents still happen regularly," he said.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Transport asked authorities in Ha Tinh, Hung Yen, Binh Dinh and Lam Dong, where many serious accidents occur, to inspect all transport enterprises whose vehicles caused accidents.

The inspection results must be reported to the ministry next month.

Thanh said that to limit traffic accidents, the police should intensify penalties for drivers who exceeded the regulated number of hours on the road.

The ministry also asked the Directorate for Roads to total up the number of long-distance transport enterprises and routes that are more than 1,000 kilometres long.

The ministry would base its response on those statistics, said Thanh.

Meanwhile, head of the National Traffic Safety Committee Than Van Thanh said transport enterprises should have proper schedules so that drivers did not have to drive for too long or overnight.

On June 3, three accidents happened from 9pm to 1am in Ha Tinh Province\'s Ky Anh District, killing a total of seven people and injuring five others.

On Monday this week, one person died and six other were seriously injured in another bus accident in the province\'s Hong Linh Town.