May 16, 2009: Passengers using the Kaley-Tamu highway bus services are facing a dilemma regarding no limits to passengers, fewer bus services and no traffic rules on the way. As a result ticket holders cannot sit comfortably in the buses, as they are constantly heckled by passengers, who do not have seats.

In fact, the owners of Kaley-Tamu bus services in western Burma, allow all passengers, who want to travel by their bus with or without tickets. So a number of passengers sit in between seats as well as perch themselves on the roof of the bus.

“As the bus owners want to have additional income they accept all passengers, without tickets. Those passengers sit on our luggage or goods on the roof. Sometimes, they sleep or drink alcohol on the way. Although we had reported this to the bus driver, nothing changed. At the same time there is no action taken by traffic authorities,” a trader said.

All 10 Kaley-Tamu bus services are private vehicles, but only 2 buses ply per day. A bus uses 15 gallons of diesel for a trip, the cost is Kyat 3500 in the black market.

“The bus owners want to get more profit, using less diesel and having as many passengers on every trip. They never think about the safety of the passengers. Indeed, the capacity of a bus is 64 passengers, but they take 70 to 80. Although it can create risks for our passengers, we cannot do anything as we are just following the orders of bus owners. Sometimes we are afraid that accidents will happen because of overload,” a bus driver said.

Kaley-Tamu highway is 94 miles in length of no. 1 border trade road and it takes 3 hours to cover it as buses are loaded. A report said that on August 2, 2008 there was an accident on this highway and 3 passengers died on the spot. However, there is no checking or arrangement for more buses, in order to avoid such risks or accidents by the concerned government authorities till date.