Buses World News

In brief: Worldwide montly news & informations about Buses, Busmakers, Passengers' and the Transport Industry

23.3.16

DANGEROUS TRIP in BUSES * Lebanon/Dáesh

* Beirut - Buses provide rare bridge to IS turf

(Photo by Anwar Amro/AFP: Bus driver Abu Ali walks past prepares to travel into Syria from the Charles Helou bus station in Beirut)

-- "Raqa! Manbij! Al-Bab!" drivers call out at a bus station in the heart of bustling Beirut looking for passengers to make the perilous journey to Islamic State group strongholds in Syria... "Just before we reach the first Daesh checkpoint, everyone throws out their cigarettes," said Abu Ali, a bus driver in his 40s, using a derogatory Arabic name for IS. "And we spray perfume in the bus so that they can't smell the tobacco, otherwise we'll be whipped!" he said with concern etched into his expression, as he prepared to travel up to Manbij in northern Syria... The jihadists, who apply their own extreme interpretation of Islam in areas of Syria and Iraq that they have seized since 2013, do more than just inspect the bus for cigarettes. "They even smell our hands to make sure we haven't smoked," said Jawad, another bus driver, also using a pseudonym for fear of retribution... Standing near his bus at the Charles Helou station near the Lebanese capital's harbour, another driver begged AFP journalists not to film either his face or his number plate. "These people, they're dangerous, and they can recognise the bus even from the most minor detail," said the terrified man... The buses, which leave from a bus station located in one of Beirut's busiest districts, are a rare link between IS-held turf in Syria and the outside world. Since IS began conquering swathes of Syria in 2013, the buses have made two journeys a week to areas under the jihadists' grip, often with no more than three passengers on board... In cities like Raqa, the IS de facto capital in northern Syria, and Al-Bab to the west, residents are banned from smoking or wearing clothes deemed inappropriate under the jihadists' interpretation of sharia law...

(Photo by Anwar Amro/AFP - Buses from Beirut make two journeys a week to areas of Syria under jihadists' control, often with only a couple of passengers on board)

-- "Before the war, it took us four hours to make this journey; now, the route is 24 hours long," Abu Ali said... The buses leave from Beirut and pass through Damascus and Dmeir before reaching Palmyra in eastern Syria, in IS hands since spring last year... The vehicles then head northwest towards Raqa, Manbij, Maskana and Al-Bab near Turkey... "When the fighting is fierce, the regime doesn't let us through and we are forced to spend one or two nights on the road before we can continue on our journey," Abu Ali explained... Yet on one of the world's most dangerous routes, neither drivers nor passengers can ever be sure they'll make it to their destinations alive... "My colleague was heading back several days ago on the Palmyra road, when fighting broke out," Mohammed said... "I recognised his bus, its front was completely smashed in. He didn't make it" ...
Beirut, Lebanon - AFP/Daily Mail - 21 March 2016

Labels: dangerous roads, dangerous trips

21.8.08

The World's * 10 Most Dangerous Roads *

1. The North Yungas Road, Bolivia

Built by Paraguayan prisoners of war in the 1930s, the North Yungas Road, which locals call the “Road of Death,” snakes across roughly 40 miles of the Andes in northeastern Bolivia. In 1995, the Inter-American Development Bank named the La Paz to Coroico route “the world’s most dangerous road.” And for good reason. The unpaved road is bordered by 3,000-foot cliffs. More than 100 travelers die every year trekking the route’s hairpin curves.

2. BR-116, Brazil

The second longest road in Brazil, BR-116, runs from Porto Alegre through Curitiba and Sao Paulo, all the way to Rio de Janeiro. The Curitiba-Sao Paulo section of the highway is nicknamed “Rodovia da Morte” (Highway of Death). The name fits. The road runs around--and even through--the edges of steep cliffs. The result: “accidents and road fatalities are distressingly common,” as one travel advisory puts it.

3. Sichuan-Tibet Highway, China

In China, the number of deaths caused by car accidents has nearly doubled in the past 20 years, climbing from 3.9 to 7.6 per 100,000 of the population between 1985 and 2005. During this time, the number of cars on the road increased ninefold, and the number of other vehicles, principally motorcycles, jumped by a factor of 54. Government statistics show nearly 82,000 road deaths--5.1 for every 10,000 motor vehicles--in China in 2006, according to the Xinhua News Agency. Ironically, the least populated regions had the highest overall death rates per 100 000 motor vehicles. The Sichuan-Tibet Highway, a high-elevation road between Chengdu and Tibet where landslides and rock avalanches are common, is undoubtedly part of the problem.

4. Pan American Highway, Costa Rica The Pan American Highway, a network of roads that stretches nearly 30,000 miles from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in North America to the lower reaches of South America, is the world's longest "motorable road," according to Guinness World Records. Although only a small portion of the road runs through Costa Rica, that portion boasts some of the most dangerous miles. Called the Hill of Death, the stretch of the Pan-American Highway from San Isidro de El General to Cartago is a gauntlet of narrow curves, steep cliffs, flash floods and landslides.

5. Coastal Roads, CroatiaThe good news for the droves of tourists pouring into the fishing villages and sea resorts that crowd Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast on the Adriatic Sea is that they don’t need to worry about land mines. The detritus of a decade of ethnic warfare that ended with the breakup of the former Yugoslavia is far from the narrow, congested and curvy roads along the coast, which brings us to the bad news. The coastal roads and the fast-driving Croats that crowd them probably account for more deaths and injuries than accidents associated with unexploded ordinance ever do.

6. Cotopaxi Volcan, Ecuador

Traveling to Ecuador? Be careful, the roads are dangerous, and the most dangerous of them all is one many tourists unwittingly travel. Slightly south of capital city Quito, the Cotopaxi Volcan Road is a 25-mile span of treacherous dirt road that connects the Pan American Highway with Cotopaxi Volcan national park, which boasts the highest active volcano in Ecuador at 19,460 feet. The “road” is plastered with potholes and runs through a nightmarishly deceptive “stream” that puts the “flash” in flash floods when it rains. Add poorly maintained cars and poorly trained drivers, and you’ll appreciate the trials and tribulations of a drive in the jungle.

7. Luxor-al-Hurghada Road, Egypt

The road that links the ancient city of Luxor in southern Egypt and Hurghada, the regional hub for several scuba diving resorts on the Red Sea, is a death trap. The vast majority of drivers never turn on their headlights after the sun goes down, setting the stage for the high accident fatality rate that has earned the road a spot on this list. Ironically, the only thing more dangerous than driving on the road at night with your headlights off is driving at night with them on. If the bandits don’t get you, the terrorists probably will. In 1997, terrorists shot and killed 62 German tourists in Luxor in a massacre that resulted in a massive government crackdown that endures today.

8. A44, U.K.

The A44 runs from Oxford to Aberystwyth. The two-lane road has tallied enough accident fatalities and serious injuries in recent years to earn the ignominious honor of having government surveillance cameras installed to deter speeding and otherwise encourage cautious driving. And on a road where more than 25% of crashes on are head-on collisions, caution is well advised.

9. Patiopoulo-Perdikaki Road, Greece

Although the Ottoman Empire occupied Greece for 400 years, they never conquered a small mountainous region in central Greece called Agrafa. They had the military fire power and political will to do so. They simply didn’t have any way to get there. The roads were as dangerous in the steep, mountainous region then as they are now.

10. Grand Trunk Road, India to Afghanistan

The Grand Trunk Road was built in the 16th century to connect the major cities of India with those of Pakistan and Afghanistan. It hasn’t changed much since then, but the world around it has. The road is chronically congested with ox carts, animals, bicycles and pedestrians and massive numbers of cars and buses.

FORBES (New York,NY,USA) -20 Aug 2008

Labels: dangerous roads

18.3.08

DANGEROUS ROADS * Peru - 12 dead after highway buses collide in

Lima,Peru -AFP -15 Mar 2008: -- A collision between two buses left 12 dead and some 30 injured in northern Peru, police said Saturday... Highway police Colonel Guillermo Arteta said that the buses had a "very strong" collision on a highway in the Pampa la Zorra area in Huarmey province... Luis Vidal, chief of firefighters in Ancash, said that ambulance services were overwhelmed by the number of dead and injured in the crash... (Video from youTube, by viajeros4x4x4 -November 15, 2007: "PERU. Ancash. Alrededor de Huascarán, hacia el Paso Olimpico -PERU. Surrounding Huascarán to the Olimpic Pass -5000 meters height" - La Vuelta al Mundo en 10 Años continúa en www.4x4x4continentes.com y en www.viajeros4x4x4.wordpress.com, Anna y Pablo continuan adelante, pase lo que pase y haciendo lo que no deberian hacer... o sea, volviendo a subir por caminos que los llevan hasta los 5000 metros de altura... ¡pobre furgoneta!!!)

Labels: dangerous roads