Road blamed for bus window breakage
- Source: Global Times
- [10:47 July 09 2010]
- Comments
A bus on route 121 with the broken window it suffered Thursday morning on Huazhuang Road in Jiading district. No passengers were hurt. Photo: Liba.com
By Zhou Ping
Shanghai No.4 Bus Company is calling for the road surface on one of its routes to be improved, following the latest in a line of buses on the route suffering broken windows.
A window on a bus on route 121 broke Thursday morning as a result of the poor surface on Huazhuang Road in Jiading district, according to a report by Xinmin.cn. No one was injured.
According to the bus company official in charge of the route, the poor road surface jars the buses, resulting in the breakages.
"The cause of this accident is the poor condition of Huazhuang Road," Chen Qiang, the head of route 121, told the Global Times Thursday. "Cement mixers and other construction vehicles frequently use the road, and have destroyed the surface, making it bumpy."
According to Chen, six windows and 20 tires have been damaged on the 121 route in the past two months. "Once a win-dow shield broke, which cost us around 1,500 yuan ($221.4) to replace. Small windows such as the one broken this morning cost up to 800 yuan ($118)," he said.
Chen added that, although no one has yet been injured by broken glass while riding the route, some passengers have fallen over as a result of the bumpy surface, requiring the bus company to pay compensation.
"We always ask our drivers to be cautious and slow down whenever they spot a hole, but as there's an increasing number of rainy days, it's really hard to see the holes," Chen said. "I've talked to the petitions office and the road affairs management office of Jiading district government about the state of the road surface previously, but nothing has been done so far."
An official surnamed Gao from the Jiangqiao town government, which is responsible for the section of road, told the Global Times Thursday that there's no direct relation between the broken glass and the road surface. However, he said the local government plans to resurface the road. "It's true that the road is in poor condition, and there are plans to fix it, though the surface shouldn't be blamed for the broken glass," Gao said. "The cause could be any number of factors, such as swings in temperature."
"I can't say if the poor road condition is the cause of the breakages as I haven't seen the road for myself, and can not be sure if there was already some pre-existing damage to the window," a member of the sales department of Shanghai Sunwin Bus Corporation, the manufacturer of the buses on route 121, said. "But I can say that high speeds combined with too many bumps will shorten the life of the glass."
According to Chen, ticket sales for the 121 route amount to up to 600,000 yuan ($88,553) each month. "We transport a large number of passengers, especially during rush hour," he said. "It will impact passengers greatly if even one or two buses are suspended."
