Private bus hits road barrier near Virudhachalam: at least 15 hurt, reports differ on driver's distraction

The accounts differ, and the difference matters. One report says the driver received a call on his mobile phone, answered it while driving, lost his concentration and lost control of the bus. It presents this as what was said at the scene and not as something police have confirmed. A second report, based on what injured passengers told the newspaper, says the driver was driving carelessly while listening to music. Police have given no official reason, and the results of any inquiry into the vehicle's condition have not been made public.

Both accounts describe the same thing, a driver whose attention was somewhere other than the road, and both rest on what passengers said in the first hours after the crash. Passengers on a full bus are well placed to see what the driver is doing, though they are not investigators, and the cause will be settled by police and transport officials, not by newspaper accounts.

Even the basic facts vary. The count of the injured is 15 in one report and more than 20 in another. One report says the injured were treated at the government hospital in Virudhachalam; the other does not name a hospital. The reports also disagree on the driver. One says he fled the scene and is being searched for; the other says police arrested both the driver and the conductor and are questioning them. Police did question the injured at the hospital, according to one account, and registered a complaint at the Karuvepilankurichi station.

None of the reports gives the bus operator or registration number, the speed at which it was travelling, or the severity of the injuries. One newspaper described more than 15 of the passengers as seriously injured, but none of the reports says that anyone is in a critical condition.

A run of bus accidents

The crash comes after others on Tamil Nadu's roads this month. On 12 October a state-run bus bound for Coimbatore rammed into the back of a private bus that had stopped to pick up passengers near the Navapatti bus stop in Mettur, in Salem district. At least 26 people on the government bus were injured, among them 16 men, eight women and two children, and were taken to the Mettur Government Hospital. The front of the government bus was badly damaged, and police registered a case. Rules treat the use of a hand-held phone while driving as dangerous driving under the Motor Vehicles Act, and public-service vehicles carry the extra duty of looking after dozens of passengers at a time.

The questions for investigators are plain ones: whether the driver was using a phone or earphones, whether the bus was fit to run, and why a bus carrying more than 50 passengers left its lane at a barrier in the middle of the road. Police have not said what charges, if any, have been laid. Until they do, the case rests on what the passengers saw, and the details should be held lightly.