In fact, ever since November 14 last year, when a Pegas-branded bus collided with two women riding on a motorbike on Thepkasattri Rd, killing both of them instantly, it appears that there has been bus crash after bus crash and accident after accident.
The accidents are usually blamed on brake failure or irresponsible driving. It doesn’t help matters much when, on a number of occasions – including the one in which the two women died – the drivers fled the scene.
When The Phuket News contacted the company after their most recent accident on Tuesday evening – in which a Pegas-branded bus loaded with Russians ploughed into a house in Patong, the company seized the opportunity of clearing up some of the negative publicity.
Espen Westlie, Phuket Branch Manager began by saying, “We get directly blamed a lot, it’s not fair. There are other accidents [involving] other tour companies, but we don’t really hear so much [about those].”
This, Mr Westlie believes, is because the Pegas-branded vehicles are so clearly branded and easily identifiable and also because Pegas is now easily the biggest tour company on the island, with more than 80 vehicles working daily to move around 200,000 people a year around Phuket.
In the three years since the company began operations in Thailand, it has gone from providing tours to 45,000 people, to a whopping half a million of tourists around the country.
Also speaking to The Phuket News was Nikorn Yatinunt, a consultant for Pegas Touristik, and – more importantly – Kitsakorn Teeranatthapong, sales manager for Trans Asia Express, the company from which Pegas leases many of its buses.
One of the main points that Pegas wanted to make clear at the meeting was that the buses, the drivers and therefore the accidents are not its responsibility. That lies with the five contractors Pegas leases the 80 or so vehicles from.
The vehicles are branded with the Pegas logo but are managed and maintained by the contractors and driven by the contractors’ own drivers.
Trans Asia Express provide most (20) of the big Pegas-branded buses seen on the island, they also provide other big international tour operators with buses and vans that are seen around the island.
Mr Nikorn says, “The responsibility for the accidents lies with Mr Kitsakorn. They are not our vehicles. We have lots of contractors. It is their responsibility.”
The terms and conditions of responsibility are clearly laid out in the ‘Drivers Rules and Regulations’ form that is signed between both parties. Pegas provided a copy of the document to The Phuket News.
The form is detailed. For example, it stipulates that drivers must be neat, wear uniforms and not wear slippers. The vehicles must not be used by drivers for their personal use, drivers may not speed, and must not drive drunk.
Mr Kitsakorn says that drivers are responsible for ensuring safety and maintenance of each vehicle. Drivers must check the vehicle at the beginning and end of their shift.
“Each of the buses is also required to undergo an intensive maintenance check by our mechanic once every month. The buses are thoroughly checked ever month.”
Mr Kitsakorn added that Trans Asia keeps an extra bus on standby, so it’s not a problem if a bus needs extensive maintenance. It is for this reason, he said, that the accidents are rarely, if ever, the result of vehicle malfunctions.
During the meeting, The Phuket News went through the five incidents involving Pegas buses in the past six months, beginning with the incident with the two women on the motorbike on November 14. Three of the incidents involved buses leased out by Trans Asia.
Referring to the deadly incident, Mr Kitsakorn was adamant that the accident was not his driver’s fault. As the driver was approaching the traffic lights, Mr Kitsakorn said, it was on amber, so he decided to go through it. The two women were making a turn across that lane, and against the red light, and so they collided.
Explaining why the driver fled the scene, Mr Kitsakorn says, “He ran off because a mob had descended on him. But he surrendered to police.”
An ensuing police investigation decided that the driver was not culpable. Despite this, however, he was dismissed by the company. And even though Trans Asia was found not to be at fault, the company decided to compensate the two women’s families, to the tune of around B500,000 each.
After each and every incident, Trans Asia is required to make a full report to Pegas and also deal directly with the police, who also make a full investigative report.
The other two cases involving Trans Asia-leased vehicles were eerily similar. The first, which occurred on February 13, as the bus was descending Patong Hill came as a result of the driver “being unable to apply brakes or change down gears in time”, according to Mr Kitsakorn, opting instead to steer the bus into a ditch at the side of the road to stop it. A woman driving a motorbike was in the path of the bus but was fortunately not seriously injured.
The subsequent report to Pegas concluded that neither the bus, nor the driver was at fault. The driver was not fined by police and is still employed by Trans Asia, driving for Pegas.
The most recent case involving Pegas and Trans Asia occurred on June 4, at a favourite crash site – the bottom of Patong Hill on the Patong side.
Initial reports blamed the accident on brake failure but this was not the case, says Mr Kitsakorn.
“The driver decided not to brake or change gear to make the turning into Patong. He was too confident and thought that he could instead steer it into the side street,” said Mr Kitsakorn.
He added that the 68-year-old driver had initially thought there might be a problem with the brakes, but the company was able to drive this bus and the one involved in the incident on February 13 away with no problem – the brakes were working. The customers were put in another bus.
The driver is currently suspended from work, “This case is under police investigation now,” says Mr Kitsakorn, “They may fine him. We [Trans Asia] have not decided whether to allow him to drive for us again.”
So if it’s not the buses, the next obvious questions is, what is Trans Asia’s procedure for hiring drivers?
“Each driver needs to have a regular licence, a six-wheel licence and a long vehicle licence. They also need to have at least 10 years’ driving experience,” said Mr Kitsakorn.
“Each driver surveys the island for two weeks before getting behind the wheel [of one of our buses]. They need to see that there are lots of problems with the Phuket roads and it’s very dangerous.”
Mr Westlie believes that long hours and tired drivers are not a factor. “There’s not a typical working day, but the drivers are not in the buses for longer than nine hours a day and most of that time they are not driving. They have breaks throughout the day.”
He did note that, despite regulations, rules, and regular maintenance checks, Pegas regularly orders the subcontractor to terminate employees for negligence; ten were fired over the last high season from November to April for infringements and breaking the rules in the driver’s regulations form.
Many of the dismissals are demanded by Pegas themselves, because many of the infringements can be monitored remotely by global positioning system (GPS) technology. Each vehicle is fitted with a GPS unit, and Pegas has two members of staff whose job it is to monitor the whereabouts of each of the 80 vehicles Pegas uses.
“We are blamed a lot,” reiterates Mr Westlie as our meeting is coming to an end, “But we also create a lot of job opportunities and bring a lot of money to the island. We create a lots of jobs. We employ around 40 office staff, around 100 guides and, indirectly, around 100 drivers.
Mr Nikorn gets out a calculator and makes some quick calculations.
“We [Pegas and Trans Asia] have been working together for three years and we must have made more than 43,000 trips, yet we’ve had only three accidents. That’s actually quite a low percentage.”
Mr Westlie added that, “Of course one accident is always one too many.”
For now, it’s business as usual between Pegas and its largest contractor, Trans Asia, at least until the end of this particular contract.
“We have a contract,” says Mr Nikorn, “and as long as Trans Asia continues to meet its requirements and obligations we will continue working together.”