Beware * India - The "killer Blueline"
Private bus companies take a deadly toll on Indian pedestrians. Here's the problem: they're needed
New Delhi,India -GlobalPost, by Jason Overdorf -January 22, 2009: -- ...This bizarre story is not as unlikely as it seems. Kumar was the 118th person to be mowed down in 2008 by one of Delhi's “killer Blueline buses", as the local press has christened the 4,500-odd buses contracted out to private operators by the Delhi government... To be sure, the Bluelines are symptomatic of a larger problem. With more than 100,000 traffic fatalities a year and a mortality rate about seven times that of the roads in developed countries, according to the World Bank, India's roads are among the world's most deadly. And Delhi, where the number of vehicles is growing faster than any other city in India, presents a frightening vision of the future... Every few months pavement dwellers — sometimes whole families — are run over in their sleep by drunk drivers. Road rage assaults and even murders are on the rise, and nobody, but nobody, follows the rules. Last year, for instance, police statistics show that incidents of dangerous driving in India's capital nearly doubled, increasing to about 125,000 from 69,000 in 2007... Pedestrians have good reason to be cynical. The Bluelines are actually this decade's solution to last decade's problem — the relaunched and rebranded version of the Redline buses that enjoyed their own reputation for mayhem. Initially, the government opted to pay the Blueline operators by the kilometer, rather than letting them compete for ticket revenue, in an effort to stop the racing and careening into the bus stops that was thought to account for most accidents... But when bus owners decided that it was more convenient, put less wear and tear on the fleet, and earned them just as much money not to stop for passengers at all, the kilometer scheme was scrapped and the Bluelines became nothing more than the Redlines with a less-bloody sounding name... (Picture by Arko Datta/Reuters: A double-decker bus goes past Victoria Terminus in Mumbai)Labels: killer buses
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