TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A passenger injured in a deadly tour bus crash on Tuesday (March 16) alleges that the driver was speeding to keep up with two other buses in the tour group when the accident happened.
On Tuesday afternoon, a tour bus slammed into a retaining wall at the 115-kilometer mark of the Suhua Highway, near Dong'ao in Yilan County. At the scene of the accident, the 49-year-old driver, surnamed Yu (游), told authorities that as the bus exited a tunnel, it dipped down a steep incline, and the brakes were unresponsive when he tried to apply them.
He claimed the bus then hurtled out of control until it sideswiped a retaining wall, ripping open its left side, before careening into a guardrail and finally coming to a stop. However, 46.7-meter skid marks were found at the scene, indicating the brakes had in fact been applied, reported FTV.
On Wednesday (March 17), one of the injured passengers, a 58-year-old man surnamed Chen (陳), told Liberty Times that the accident happened because Yu was driving at a high speed to catch up with the buses in front of him. The bus was in a convoy of three buses transporting a total of 130 passengers on a group tour of Hualien slated for March 15 to 16, according to the Tourism Bureau.
Out of the 45 passengers on the bus, six were killed in the crash, while the remaining 39 suffered injuries ranging from minor to serious. Currently, five are still hospitalized at Lotung Po-Ai Hospital, with four in the intensive care unit and Yu in a regular inpatient ward.
Chen has been transferred from an intensive care unit to Taipei Veterans General Hospital. He told hospital staff that before the accident, someone got on the bus to sell packages of smoked duck, which he purchased and was eating when the crash took place.
He alleged that the driver was one traffic light away from the other two tour buses in front of him. Chen claimed that in order to catch up with the rest of the convoy, Yu was driving very fast.
Chen said that because of the bus's excessive speed, the brakes overheated, rendering them ineffective. He called on the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to limit the size of such convoys to only two buses to prevent one of the buses from falling behind and compelling the rear driver to speed.
