Help us save lives, urge students
"This is a petition to say that we have had enough. Help us save lives. It could be yours as well."
This message is being sent out online by a group of concerned university students, in the wake of recent fatal accidents involving express buses.
They have created an online petition on a blogsite, demanding the attention of the relevant government agencies - in particular, the transport ministry - in ensuring accident-free travel on interstate buses.
Up to 10am this morning, 7,080 signatures had been added to the petition on the site dubbed as ‘Bus Crash No More’.
The site, dedicated to victims of accidents at Slim River and Bukit Gantang in Perak, has attracted postings in the form of news reports, letters and comments from bloggers.
In the Slim River incident on Jan 25, university student Lee Nian Ning, 21, Mohd Zailani Mustafa,23, and Pang Poon Eng, 20, lost their lives. The bus driver was said to have lost control of the double-decker vehicle, which slammed into a divider.
Lee, a former state swimmer, was a Public Service Department scholar studying medicine at the University of New South Wales, Australia.
According to the petition, many university students rely on public transport, in particular express bus services, to travel to and from home.
The petition calls on the authorities to set up a committee of road-safety experts and representatives of relevant public bodies, to conduct a thorough study and come up with effective solutions to problems identified.
