AUG 23 — The people are horror-struck. They are steaming with anger over yet another failure by a bus operator and the authorities to ensure safety.

Understandably so: the stance of this segment of the guardians of public safety carries a stench of insolence and self-delusion that point to wickedness.

Clearly, the broad, general contours of the most important elements to ensure safe bus travel have been the elephant in the room for years.

Explain otherwise Wednesday’s deadly Genting Highlands bus smash that killed 37 people and injured 16 others when the carrier plunged 70 metres into a ravine.

It’s not as if buses have not been a pressing subject. It’s just that the issue has often been snootily ignored by the authorities.

Virtually no systematic and comprehensive attention has been paid by policymakers to this sector of public transport.

Explain otherwise why the stage bus has been allowed to sell “standing tickets” for the trip to the highland resort, unless of course it’s a prelude to a rollercoaster ride at the theme park there.

The operator has been allowed to ferry 43 seated passengers and 18 others standing per trip. 

Explain otherwise why the report by an independent panel which investigated the Cameron Highlands bus accident that killed 28 people in 2010 was never made public.

The authorities, who had gone to sleep despite calls for stricter laws on errant bus operators, have again been jolted.

The latest tragedy, the deadliest road accident in Malaysia, has cast fresh attention on the collapse of bus travel safety.

The usual arguments have begun. Official response to the calamity has been pessimistic, unconvincing and frustratingly irritating.

As expected, almost immediately the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) has set up a task force to probe the crash. Expect more task forces.

Obviously, the authorities don’t realise that unsafe public travel adds to the sphere of rising community despair.

The exasperation stems from a doomed template that has a familiar ring to such misfortunes.

The people loathe that they can accurately forecast what comes next. They hate that they can precisely predict the stand of the authorities. They fume that all too soon everything will be forgotten.

Ignoring public safety is an act of aggression against civilisation.

Dare one hope that the authorities would rehabilitate the attitude of bus operators — many of whom are hell-bent on having it their way — and set them on the right route to serving responsibly?

Recurring nightmares arising from accidents involving buses form the backdrop to the daily lives of passengers. It’s not in the national interest that this situation continues.

It’s all about respect for a decent civil system that can depend on a bus to take us home safely.

Anyone thinking that only the driver of the ill-fated bus — now alleged to have been racing with a cabbie — deserves to be singled out and demonised has an etch-a-sketch brain.

Still, expect the theatrics to go on. Fixing it won’t be easy. Safe bus travel will stick in the throat like a fish bone because the authorities obviously love this sort of charade.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.