HANDS ON. LTFRB Regional Director Ahmed Cuizon (in white shirt) personally inspects a bus to check its road worthiness. The joint LTO-LTFRB team led by Director Cuizon made a surprise inspection at the North Bus Terminal yesterday.
Regional transport authorities yesterday swooped down on the North Bus Terminal in Cebu City and conducted a surprise inspection on public utility buses.
Over 20 buses were inspected by staffers of the Land Transportation Franchising Regulatory Board (LTFRB) and the Land Transportation Office (LTO).
LTFRB Regional Director Ahmed Cuizon said they regularly inspect buses to make sure operators are not violating any rules and regulations, but yesterday’s inspection was ordered by the
LTFRB head office following a series of fatal bus accidents, one of which led to the death of comedian and activist, Tado.
Cuizon said they red-flagged operators of buses with no seat belts and whose directional indicator lights were not functioning. There were also drivers caught not wearing proper uniforms.
A bus plying the Borbon-Cebu City route was impounded because it had a different and undocumented engine number.
HANDS ON
The operator will have to pay P10,000 plus the P1,500 per day that the mini bus is at the impounding area. The operator can reclaim his mini bus only after complying with the requirements in changing engines.
The LTFRB and LTO will conduct a demonstration of a speed limiter gadget that will be installed on buses anytime this month
The device, which emits an alarm should the bus exceed its allowable speed limit, will help lessen the number of accidents on the road, said Cuizon.
This way, passengers will be able to call the attention of drivers violating the speed limit and can use this as legal evidence and basis for filing a case.
Meanwhile, the operations manager of the North Bus Terminal, Zosimo Jumao-as Jr., said that the number of trips to northern Cebu declined by almost 50 percent after towns were devastated by typhoon Yolanda. Jumao-as said that from 250 trips a day, they are down to 180 trips.
This resulted in a 40 percent loss of revenue for the terminal, he said.