OPINION

Crash and burn

The Dec 7 comment on the roadworthiness of double-decker buses, "Laxity on big buses causes threat to lives", is commendable, but not quite correct.

In the crash the writer uses as the prime example at Songkhla last week. It can quite clearly be seen in the picture, the bus is on its right side and, if it had "tipped over", it would be on its left side.

The bus has obviously crashed into the sala bus shelter after the driver lost control and has been overturned in the process with the wheels facing remains of the shelter.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with the 30-degree test, and is driver error plain and simple.

What the bus lacks, as they all seem to, is an emergency exit at the rear of the bus (usually the upper-deck rear window, the lower deck usually having a small door on the right at the rear too).

The writer is right of course that the design of buses should be safety approved before manufacture (including the 30-degree test).

The laws of the road should be enforced by the highway police.

What the writer misses here is that a much better standard of test should be introduced for passengers carrying vehicles (over eight seats) and heavy goods vehicles (trucks over five tonnes) with five yearly re-testing for drivers and two yearly for vehicles.

Also, let's face it, regular and stricter tests for all vehicles with a motor are needed, and a strict test for people to obtain a licence to drive ordinary cars or motorcycles on Thai roads.

Until then we will continue to see the carnage every day.

The report on the Thai teen being deported from Japan on Dec 8 had one very major and glaring omission: The identity of this boy's father.

Apart from one rather old and famous religious occasion we assume that every child has both a mother and a father and yet all information about this unfortunate boy's problems ignored his father who I assume is Japanese and who maybe could have done a lot more to help his child gain citizenship.

No mention was made of a man who fathered a child and then failed to get the appropriate certificate. My best guess would be that an already married man took this Thai woman as his concubine but would do nothing to help his offspring because of the shame and embarrassment it would cause his legal wife and family. Even in xenophobic Thailand, a child born here and with one Thai parent gets an ID. How about digging a little deeper and filling in the gaps in a story that so far is rather one-sided.

Re: "Shutting out parties is recipe for trouble", (Opinion, Dec 6, 2016).

I encourage the columnist to look into the fact that, over the past 84 years, Thai politicians have been given one chance after another to develop, nurture and protect democracy in this country, so that equity and equality can become the norm.

However, these politicians seemed to have lost their way every time: They became so corrupt and self-serving that the democratic process had to be stopped before a civil war could break out.

I'm getting a little fed up that the media when reporting accidents, injuries and fatalities find it necessary to state that the casualties included women and children.

The latest example was the Reuters' article in the Bangkok Post on Dec 8 which stated a ship carrying more than 60 passengers , including women and children, sank off the Yemen coast.

Is it intended to tug at readers' heartstrings or to imply that men's deaths are any less sad? I hope not.