In yet another in a series of increasingly familiar scenarios, at least 20 people were killed last Wednesday in the Kashmir region of northern India when a tourist bus missed a curve on a mountain road and the bus rolled over down the hill. At least 50 others were injured. Some news reports put the totals at 25 killed and 72 injured. Hey, who needs seat belts, anyway?
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This report comes at about the same time as the one last week from Colorado. By now, readers of LN&C know what happens. Passengers are catapulted through the bus or ejected from the bus. Compartmentalization doesn't do crap for them. Deaths and severe injuries are a certainty in these kinds of crashes. Still, the apostles of compartmentalization profess that there is no supportable need for seat belts on busses.
Perhaps they've never read a newspaper. More likely, they only care about maximizing corporate profits, and if our children have to die to keep profits high, well, too bad for the kids. That puts bus industry types into the same bed with tobacco company executives. At least, the tobacco company execs have finally admitted that they were lying to us for years.
Don't be a sucker of the tobacco industry or the bus industry. Just say, "No," to those who try to get you to smoke cigarettes and to those who try to get you to ride a bus that doesn't have 3-point seat belts for all passengers.
Here is a link to The Times of India story about the Kashmir bus crash. This link generates really slowly, so give it a few minutes. Also, here is a link to the PDF file of the same story in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The Arkansas newspaper story will only be available through this week on Wednesday. The story is located in the left column, half way down the page.
The area of India where last week's crash took place is near the northern tip of India, in the Himalayan Mountains, at about 34 degrees North latitude and about 76 degrees East longitude. China is located just to the east and Pakistan is located to the north and west. The road is located in the mountains, at an elevation of over 18,000 feet, so if you think the driver in the Colorado crash may have been woozy at 10,000 feet, imagine what it would be like to drive an overloaded bus at twice that elevation. Also, some news reports indicate that one of the tires on the Colorado bus may have blown out from being cut by debris on the roadway, and that may have precipitated the crash. All the more reason why we need seat belts on busses. You just never know what may precipitate a crash or when it may happen, so we need seat belts to protect us from the unexpected.
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