Thirteen people were killed on October 28 when a bus with 15 people on board plunged into the Yangtze River after colliding with a car on a bridge in Wanzhou, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. A further two people are still missing 10 days later.

Investigation results released by local authorities on November 2 stated that the accident was caused by a fight between the bus driver and a female passenger. Video footage of the surveillance camera on the bus retrieved from the river indicates that the female passenger missed her stop and asked the driver to drop her off. After he refused, she began to hit him with her mobile phone. The driver hit back and lost control of the bus. The bus took a sudden turn to the left and collided with a car driving in the opposite direction before ploughing through the safety barriers and plunging into the river below.

The accident has spurred a heated online discussion concerning public safety. Some blame the passenger and driver for losing their tempers, some say other passengers on board are also to blame as they took no action to stop the fight, while others say laws and regulations should be improved to enhance punishments for passengers who fight with drivers to deter similar offences occurring in the future.

Rule of law required

Zhao Minghao (Guangming Daily): A lack of legal awareness is the primary cause for the accident. The rule of law is not only a consensual idea agreed upon by society but a set of practices, laws and regulations to be obeyed by all. Relevant parties involved in the accident have failed to show an adequate level of awareness of regulations and paid a heavy price for this ignorance.

The driver should have stopped the bus to reconcile the dispute. Similar cases of passengers fighting with bus drivers have occurred many times before. If the public transport company the driver works for had trained its drivers on resolving such disputes, the tragedy might have been avoided.

We should prevent actions that endanger public safety through the binding force of law and regulations, though the role of morality should never be dismissed. It should be noted that any transgression committed by a member of society has the potential to cause threats to public safety. The accident serves as a warning to the public that they should maintain adequate respect for rules and other people's rights rather than letting their rage gain the upper hand.

Disputes and conflicts are inevitable. Only by improving relevant rules and regulations and inculcating a sense of safety in all members of society will there be a more secure society.

Li Daixiang (www.xinhuanet.com): Lack of awareness of safety and law is the primary reason for the tragedy.

The passenger who missed her stop should have waited to get off at the next one. However, instead she chose violence without any consideration for her safety or for the safety of others on the bus.

Ensuring safety of passengers should be one of the pillars of a bus driver and their training. They should know how to deal with an emergency to ensure passengers' safety.

Both the driver and the passenger seriously endangered public safety and violated criminal law. The case has taught the society a lesson and hopefully spurred it to improve legal awareness and prevent any such action that affects public safety. It should become our bottom line to respect lives and obey rules.

Similar cases have happened frequently across China, though normally with less serious outcomes. We should learn a painful lesson from the Chongqing tragedy by improving safety awareness, respecting lives and rationally dealing with disputes.

Distraction leads to tragedies

Li Xiaopeng (Qianjiang Evening News): Ensuring one's temper is under control is a precondition for safety. Quarrels and fights do nothing to solve a dispute. The only solution should be to analyze the problem and find a solution to it. The female passenger in question should have waited to get off at the next stop and taken another bus to reach her destination. Her loss of control has cost the lives of many others who were traveling on the bus.

Passengers should under no circumstances interfere with the driver. This should not only be a moral code but also stipulated in law. Any action that seeks to interrupt a driver should be subject to a harsh legal punishment. However, the punishment stipulated in current laws is far from enough.

Also in Chongqing in June last year, a man asked the bus driver to let him off when the bus had traveled 200 meters past his stop. He grabbed the steering wheel and, luckily, the driver stopped the bus which was only a few centimeters from a ditch. The man was only subject to administrative detention for five days.

Bus drivers need to concentrate their attention to the job in order to cope with emergencies and prevent accidents. Passenger quarreling or even fighting with the driver will inevitably distract the latter's attention and lead to tragedies such as this. Actions such as these seriously threaten public safety and should be subject to harsh punishments.

In addition to enhancing punishments, promotional activities should be held to raise the awareness of dangers of interfering with the driver while they are in control of a vehicle.

Other passengers on the bus should not stand by but attempt to curtail a dispute in a bid to ensure their own safety. On April 20, a male passenger on a bus from Hengyang to Changsha in central China's Hunan Province stopped a passenger from grabbing the steering wheel, a laudable act.

Imperative training

Yan Xiaofeng (China Newsweek): The public transport company should assume responsibility for the accident as passengers entrust their lives to the company when they buy a ticket to take a bus journey. There have been a number of cases involving passengers fighting with drivers in China. If public transport companies paid enough attention to the problem and provided relevant training, the tragedy could have been avoided.

The key to preventing tragedy when a bus driver is attacked is to stop the bus immediately rather than fighting back. Therefore, drivers should receive pre-job training, ensuring passengers' lives are put first in every situation. They should learn to deal with such circumstances in a calm manner rather than losing their tempers.

On September 19, a female bus driver in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, instantly put the brakes on when a male passenger tried to hold the steering wheel. Her actions prevented a major traffic accident.

In addition to strengthening training, awareness of rules and safety should be improved by enhancing education, starting in primary school. Accusations are meaningless. We should think more about what we can do to prevent tragedy from happening again.

Copyedited by Craig Crowther

Comments to dingying@bjreview.com