Traffic Accidents In Sri Lanka: Blame The Buses
Some of these vehicles are more deadly than the others. From this spreadsheet, data via The Sunday Times and SL Police
Sri Lanka had 2,515 fatal accidents last year and 1,102 so far in 2011. Any accident is a bad scene, but in Sri Lankan they’re quite often horrific. People walk literally on the road and lorries and buses overtake blind. Everyone drives a bit mad and madness ensues. The Sunday Times has a good breakdown of stats on car accidents vs. vehicles registered, but they never get to the emergent point. Who causes a disproportionate share of accidents? It seems to be the buses. And lorries.
Number of accidents minus the number of vehicles. A positive number means you’re killing more than your share
This makes sense because they’re the biggest and most destructive vehicles, driven by the most sleep deprived people. The chart above shows the difference between accidents and vehicles registered. Buses and lorries are accounting for more than their share of accidents. Motorcycles account for a lot less.
This makes sense. On a motorbike, it’s just your body and the road, and probably your bike. Motorcyclists have a lot to lose and, though they seem to still drive like idiots, they obviously have an incentive to avoid accidents. For a bus or lorry driver, however, you probably won’t get grievously hurt and it’s not your vehicle. Hence.
It’s actually quite mad. Let me give you a few anecdotal stories.
Hit And Run And Hit
A relative of a friend was driving home drunk as the sun came out. A mother and daughter were on the way to temple. He ran them over and came to a stop. Now, in Sri Lanka, if you get in an accident, in certain hoods they will drag you out of the car and kill you. More often than not, it’s better to go to the next police station and sort it out there. Unless someone is injured, in which case you really should help. In this case the mother was thrown aside but the daughter was still in front of the car. This gentleman, however, decided to leave anyway, and ran over the daughter again. Horrifying. Thankfully, a bus driver saw and pulled his vehicle across the road, blocking the assailant’s escape. Once is an accident. Twice is assault. I think he ended up in jail, but who knows. Even in cases where pedestrians die, people that can afford cars often just pay some blood money and that’s the end of that.
Cow And Calf
A friend was driving at night, outstation. At one point the road was poorly lit and took a bit of a dip. It being a clear road, they were going rather fast. Suddenly they came over a bend and saw a herd of cows in the middle of the road. He slammed on the brakes but it was too late, he hit a calf square and the animal rolled over the car, smashed the windshield and came out the other side. The mother cow was behind and got knocked over. The friends got down, in shock. There was blood and shit everywhere, and wailing in the air.
Then they saw a van coming down the same road and tried to signal it with flashlights. The van wasn’t paying attention and barreled straight into the mother cow again. It still wasn’t dead but I think it eventually died, slowly.
So, uh, there’s some statistics.
Posted on Monday, July 4th, 2011 in death, Sri Lanka, Statistics, transport.
Mohsin Hamid, author of How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia, has a nice 
I’m happy to be featured in Echelon magazine’s 40 Under 40 feature, profiling young people who contribute to the economy in some way, mainly in business but also in terms of innovation and thought leadership. It’s an interesting article not just in that I’m in it (mainly for work on indi.ca and 
I won’t add too much commentary, but just read I guess. The youngest Rajapaksa, Rohitha (Chi Chi) has given an amazing interview to the 
In 2009 this strange character appeared on the Sri Lankan Internet scene, getting angry, flaming, trolling whatever. Then he started naming anonymous bloggers, posting comments as people’s kids, nasty stuff, for which I removed him from 
Not a bit surprised to hear that about buses.
There are a number of causes :
1. Corruption at the RMV means that most people who obtain driving licenses cannot drive. They also have no understanding of road rules. This is one cause of the poor driving.
2. Competition between private buses – this turns into races and results in dangerous driving. The government needs to auction route licenses exclusively to one bus company on the basis of the provision of standardised service ( a bus every 10 minutes during rush hours, reducing to one every 15-20 minutes at other times etc). Some details of how a proper private bus service should run are here:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/businessandpartners/busoperators/9470.aspx
3. Stray dogs and the occasional cow add to the problem, but there are a lot more dogs than cows. Something needs to be done to keep stray animals off the street, because they cause accidents that can kill people. A friend of a friend killed a woman because he swerved to avoid a dog, I have had a number of friends who have had injuries after falling off bikes when dogs either chase them or jump at the bike (happens a lot on dark streets, they tend to jump at the headlight).
Mr. Point, here are solutions to all of your points.
1. Give it to Gota
2. Only allow state owned buses
3. Buy t-shirts from ODEL
OR get Gota to take a bus down that route and shoot all the dogs. And the trishaw drivers.
sorted
@ David BlockHead
What happens if the dogs and the trishaw drivers hold up white flags?
…will it become a case of “Zero Dogs” and “Zero Trishaw Drivers?”
…will Channel 4 then do a documentary of this incident showing moving images taken from camera phones of dogs and trishaw drivers being shot at point blank range ? (the dogs with their fore legs and hind legs tied together and the trishaw drivers with their hands tied behind their backs).
…will the Government accuse Channel 4, saying the footage has been manipulated and come up with a video of their own where we distinctly hear the dogs barking in Tamil and the trishaw drivers also screaming Boodoo ammoo in Tamil?
…Will Chinthana Mahinda’s mother be identified among the dead dogs?
[...] Traffic Accidents In Sri Lanka: Blame The Buses [...]
I found this site while looking for statistics on SL road accidents. Thanks I got them.
However, I’m curious why some ppl have turned this to penforce their political agenda.
ppl who lived in SL over the LTTEs war time only really experienced what happened in here. Rest is imaginary and enforce political agenda.
LTTE has done so many massacres against Innocent SL civillians over past 30 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aranthalawa_Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kebithigollewa_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kattankudy_mosque_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anuradhapura_massacre
above are only few.
SL military might not have killed white flagged LTTE carders.
Or… may be they have.
Any military activity is justified against such a group of basterds.
- Shri.