Government Destroys Fung Wah Bus Company
18th July 2013
Operate outside of your box, and the government will get you.
The bus industry has been subject to an onslaught of new regulations in recent years—a reaction by government to a few tragic accidents that drew widespread media attention. While horrific accidents occur periodically, buses are not only orders of magnitude safer than passenger cars, they’re safer than they’ve ever been thanks to engineering and manufacturing advances. There are about 34 fatal intercity bus accidents annually as compared to 23,000 fatal passenger car crashes. An unintended consequence of the regulatory onslaught is that higher ticket prices will lead fewer travelers to forgo their cars for the bus, making them far more likely to die on the highway. What safety-anxious parent would prefer their college offspring to catch a ride home in a car driven by a fellow student rather than take the bus?
For all that they love to waste money on trains, the bureaucrats don’t seem to have much affection for mass transit that actually works.