"The bus had accumulated 19 police summonses since 1991, 79 summonses from the Road Transport Department(RTD) in five years and it had failed inspections by Puspakom four times because of problems with the brakes.

"How could a bus which is clearly not road-worthy be allowed on the road. Taking action after the fact is meaningless to the families who have lost loved ones," said DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.

Lim said action must also be taken against the RTD, Commercial Vehicles Licencing Board (CVLB) and Puspakom officials for failure in performance.

"The public finds it difficult to accept claims by these departments that they cannot detect habitual offenders when the public can see that those who are blacklisted can easily form another company, get the relevant permits through their political connections and continue operations," he added.

For such a tragedy that should not have happened both Transport Minister Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy and Entrepreneur and Co-operative Development Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Khaled Nordin have to bear some of the blame.

In the United States, Lim said, a full log of driving hours is kept on truck drivers to ensure that they are well rested and have enough sleep. "Why are such basic codes not complied with in Malaysia and in the typical Malaysian fashion, require a mass tragedy of this scale to prompt the government and relevant Ministries to act?"

The Cabinet had announced that CEOs of bus companies will be held accountable for safety standards, hiring and training of drivers and fleet management to prevent bus companies from hiring bad drivers or using faulty buses. Other safety measures are:

• ADOPTING and strictly adhering to the Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) Code currently used by multinational oil and gas companies.;
• GROUNDING the entire fleet of buses and suspending all permits given to a bus company even if only one of its buses is involved in a serious accident;
• ADDITIONAL and stronger rail guards to be placed at all accident-prone roads throughout the country.
• NEW roof structure standards for buses;
• SUSPENSION of permit for a month if a commercial vehicle fails Puspakom tests three times in a row; and
• WITH immediate effect, all commercial vehicle drivers must attend a refresher driving courses.

Lim asked: "Isn't it ridiculous for Chan to say the obvious that bus operators could no longer give excuses for hiring drivers who had arrest warrants or a long list of summonses, or were drug addicts? That JPJ could not detect such drug users amongst drivers is a testimony of the inefficiency and incompetency of the Transport Ministry as well as failure of performance of Chan."

"There is no point taking action only against bus companies that compromise on transport safety standards when no action is taken against RTD, CVLB and Puspakom for failing to regulate, monitor and enforce existing rules.

"What shocked Malaysians is that the bus driver had 13 summonses, none of which have been settled, totalling RM1,980. He also had two warrants of arrest to his name issued in 2001 and 2002 while the dates for court hearings had expired for three of the offences. How could a driver with such a record be allowed to drive for so long?"