[jackbl]

Is trickery their way of LIFE????!!!

Shady buses prey on passengers going home for Tet
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Workers from Tan Thuan Export Processing Zone in HCMC on a bus back to their hometowns for Tet
A woman named Man and her son were found crying by the roadside last Saturday after a bus company took their fare but kicked them off the bus only halfway to their destination.


Stranded at the edge of the Hoa Khanh Industrial Park outside the central city of Da Nang, Man and her son had no way of getting home. Their hopes for a happy Tet (Lunar New Year) faded away quickly.

They are not the only ones. Every holiday season, unscrupulous bus companies cheat passengers for profit in an opportunistic blitz of intimidation and even threats.

As travel demand increases drastically before the Tet holiday, which falls on January 26 this year, droves of passengers have reported being conned, swindled and outright robbed of hard-earned money by gang-like bus companies.

The groups competing in the racket overload their buses, disobey traffic laws and don’t hesitate to use coercion and even force when they don’t get what they want from their passengers.

Thuggery

Extortion is rife on the Tet bus circuit.

A passenger who intended to take a bus from the southern province of Binh Duong to Thua Thien–Hue Province in the central region last week said he was lucky to escape after the bus driver and his collaborators demanded that he pay money without taking him to his destination.

He said he managed to escape when they opened the bus to take another passenger.

A xe om (motorbike taxi) driver in Binh Duong Province said many people had been extorted on buses in the area.

Residents near Suoi Tien Theme Park in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 9 said they knew of recent cases in which 16-seat buses had taken passengers to remote areas to extort them.

On Monday, passengers on a bus traveling from the Mekong Delta province of Vinh Long to HCMC had a terrifying experience when their driver threatened a competitor with a sword in competition for roadside passengers.

The bus was then stopped by Tien Giang Province police, who seized the sword and a one-meter iron pipe.


Overcharged, overloaded

Many workers from HCMC and nearby provinces going back to their hometowns in the north for Tet said they had endured overloaded buses that often drove around for hours picking up extra passengers before starting their actual journey.

The fare, which is always taken in cash instead of by ticket bought at bus stations as regulated, is always jacked-up during the holiday period.

A worker named Thao from the Song Than Industrial Park in HCMC’s Thu Duc District said she took a bus headed north from the Mien Dong Bus Station last Wednesday.

She said she had to wait for two hours while the bus waited for more passengers at a gas station.

The 52-seat vehicle then carried 65 passengers north for a period before suddenly turning back to the gas station to continue waiting.

Half a seat on that bus, the only choice besides standing, cost VND400,000 (US$23) to get to Quang Binh Province in central Vietnam.

A driver’s assistant on another bus en route from HCMC to Hanoi insulted several passengers and pushed them off the bus after they asked to get off while the bus circled the area in search of more passengers.

Bus companies often have their employees sit in the bus while it waits for passengers, tricking would-be customers into thinking that the bus is almost full and ready to go. As soon as the new passengers board, the employees get off the bus and wait for others to fill their seats.

Passengers in the central provinces say even luxury express buses have been overloading passengers, charging higher fares, and recklessly speeding.

A high-end bus from Kien Giang Province in the south to Thai Binh Province in the north was fined by traffic police last Saturday for carrying too many passengers through central Binh Dinh Province. Binh Dinh police said the driver had been previously fined once by police in Ha Tinh Province for the same breach.

Another bus from Quang Binh Province to Quang Nam Province was caught speeding at up to 120 kilometers per hour, more than twice the allowed speed on most parts of the route. The driver said he would “just take the ticket and continue the journey, even though my license and papers were confiscated.”

Police work

HCMC Traffic Police Division No.6 recently fined 447 buses for traffic violations during the first 10 days of January. Over 350 were fined for not dropping passengers at the correct places, while others had breached parking laws or failed to follow their registered routes.

Dozens of buses have been caught speeding and carrying too many passengers everyday in the central provinces.

Many traffic police have issued measures to take a bite out of shady bus companies. But fines, discharging passengers and revoking licenses haven’t done the trick.

Some law enforcement agencies simply don’t care.

Newspaper correspondents traveled from HCMC to northern Thai Binh Province by bus last week and reported that the vehicle passed several police “checkpoints” carrying 69 people in a 52-seat vehicle.

At a checkpoint near the Tan Phong crossroads in southern Dong Nai Province, police checked the driver’s license and counted the number of passengers before letting the bus go without any fine or ticket.

The bus was reprimanded only once when it was stopped later by police of Khanh Hoa Province. It received a fine for carrying 14 passengers too many. The passengers were moved to another bus.

On Saturday, a 44-seat bus traveling from the Central Highlands province of Dak Nong to Hanoi was carrying 67 people. It was stopped for the first time on National Road No.25, connecting Gia Lai and Phu Yen provinces, by a police officer who counted the number of passengers and allowed the bus to continue its journey without any fine.

The vehicle was then stopped by police in Da Nang City twice, but was still able to resume the journey after receiving a ticket.

Source: Tuoi Tre