REPORTS that coach drivers are working up to 18 hours a day, seven days a week are extremely disturbing for a country that relies so heavily on the tourist industry.
Under EU law, drivers are allowed to work no more than 90 hours a fortnight, with a compulsory day off after six consecutive days of work. Yet one driver told this paper that he had the day before clocked off a 22-hour shift – from 4am to 2am – and would be back at the wheel at 10am. The distances involved may not be up to the endless coach runs across continental Europe, but under these circumstances exhaustion can kick in at any time, even during the shortest run. It is a catastrophe waiting to happen, and action must be taken fast.
Only this week, five schoolgirls in the Republic of Ireland were killed when the coach they were in overturned on a school run. Are these the kind of headlines that are needed before the government understands it needs to take such safety issues seriously?
Hour after hour, one coach after another loads up at Larnaca or Paphos airport, ferrying tourists to their hotels across the island; and while the big tour operators do reportedly follow the safety guidelines, smaller outfits are said to be working way beyond the margins.
Can those in authority not imagine the human tragedy of a coach carrying 50 passengers plunging off the road, the scarred lives of survivors and impact on grieving relatives? And if that fails to move our decision-makers, can they not imagine the impact on our tourist industry if a coach driver involved in an accident was found to have been systematically working over the permitted limits?
Thanks to our membership of the European Union, we have all the necessary legislation on the statute books. Yet one year into membership, it is still not being enforced. The Labour Ministry admits there might be a problem, but says it has only one inspector per district to carry out the necessary controls on hundreds of coaches. What’s more, responsibility for different inspections is split up between the Labour Ministry, the police, and the Electromechanical Services of the Communications Ministry, highlighting an all too common situation where failure to co-ordinate inspection services can lead to failure to enforce the law.
With our absolute reliance on road transport, this is an issue that has to be addressed by the government with the utmost urgency. Coaches are an essential means of transport in Cyprus, and while an improved motorway network has significantly cut the risk of accidents, the issue of driver fatigue has got to be tackled before it is too late.
