Dr. Ae” opens a forum to learn from the fire incident of a school bus on a school trip – proposes a draft of the Public Safety Act, establishes a central agency with experts to learn from the incident – exposes mistakes – determines a public safety strategy to solve the problem in the long term.
Mr. Suchatvee Suwansawat, Deputy Leader of the Democrat Party, said in the forum ‘Set up a circle of thought with Dr. Ae Suchatvee’ to solve the problem from the bus fire accident to the Public Safety Act by proposing a ‘draft bill for public safety’ to solve the problem in the long term because in the past, incidents of this nature have occurred many times, both in Khon Kaen Province in 2021 or other cases where the word ‘will not happen again’ was used, but in the end, it still happened, such as the construction accident on Phra Ram 2 Road or people falling into a drain. Therefore, to build a safe city, there must be relevant laws and a central agency to manage it because currently, Thailand does not have any laws
, making solving the problem a case of shaming. Therefore, there must be a central agency that has no vested interest in any way according to the law and does not encroach on the government’s or the court’s power, but must be a representative of the people who are experts, knowledgeable, and neutral, reporting directly to the Prime Minister. When any incident occurs, lessons must be learned and mistakes must be corrected correctly, accurately, and precisely.
Mr. Suchatvee also proposed to various political parties to jointly support this draft law or propose a parallel draft law for the House of Representatives to consider in order to create change because even though it has been stated in the past that Thailand already has many organizations, it is like having many electrical outlets in homes but no safety cut-offs. He is confident that the organization under this safety law will be concise, professional, and employ specialist personnel as necessary. He also explained that the central organization for publi
c safety under this law was copied from other countries, such as the South Korean organization that has a public safety organization that once went to deal with the capsizing of a student tour boat or the Sewon incident, in which the public safety organization went into the incident from the beginning to learn lessons and identify faults from the incident of overloading and the expansion of the boat, leading to the prosecution of the ship captain, the ship’s engineer, the ship’s owner, and the coast guard. He also revealed that the president was slow to command the situation before the organization was elevated to a ministry in South Korea.
Mr. Suchatvee also emphasized that the key to this organization is to set policies and national strategies for public safety and to provide advice on rescue operations to prevent a repeat of past rescue operations that resulted in the deaths of officers, such as spraying high-pressure water on a burning building, which may cause the structure to collapse, or spraying wate
r into a chemical factory, but flammable fuel can float on the surface of the water, causing an explosion. Therefore, having experts to provide advice will help reduce losses, including standardized lesson-learning and sending it to the police to find the responsible person.
While Dr. Thanapong Jinwong, Manager of the Road Safety Academic Center or RSSA, sees that the problem of vehicle operators is partly a structural problem that small operators have a small number of vehicles, which safety standards are considered a cost that operators want to reduce costs by turning to gas. When they have to save money, they have to install multiple tanks. He also sees that it is related to the registration of license renewal. If the vehicle is old or the vehicle is used for students’ field trips, it is necessary to increase the frequency of inspections or have the relevant agencies come to assess the vehicle before use because there are some things that teachers may not have knowledge about, such as vehicle systems, whe
el systems, etc.
Mr. Thanapong also cited an example of an accident that happened to a Thai tourist in Malaysia 14 years ago, where a double-decker bus overturned and resulted in a fatality. There was a central agency in Malaysia that analyzed the incident and issued regulations for the government and the Ministry of Transport to set standards for double-decker buses and regulations that double-decker buses are prohibited from passing through. As a result of these regulations from the central agency, such accidents have not occurred again. Therefore, having a central agency that is expert, neutral, and independent will help identify the real cause and prevent the problem.
Mr. Piyabutr Wanichpongphan, former president of the Council of Engineers, supports the establishment of an independent agency to learn lessons for long-term safety because each loss is of great value and damages the confidence of foreign tourists or the confidence of bus operators themselves. Therefore, we must help take care of public sa
fety seriously. The entire system must be implemented, starting from the individual level in demonstrating safety procedures. All safety equipment must be complete, and there must be an independent central agency that seriously applies academic principles in driving the operation, including vehicles that must be in good condition and safe because most buses are fashion vehicles that use flammable materials, such as curtains or seat cushions, which cannot be neglected even slightly because they can all cause disasters.
Source: Thai News Agency