Ob incredulous question
How badly do you need to get somewhere that you'll take a bus driven by someone who has just kicked ass to get behind the wheel?

SAN SALVADOR, Oct. 11 – At least 46 people have been killed in El Salvador after a bus swerved off the road and plunged into a ravine.

Thirty other passengers were injured and have been taken to hospital. The accident happened less than 10 miles outside the capital San Salvador on a stretch of road renowned for repeated accidents.

The police say they still do not know exactly what happened to the crowded bus as it roared along the main highway from the north towards San Salvador early on Monday morning. Some say the driver lost control because of a mechanical defect as he rounded a particularly nasty bend in the road. Others say he took the curve too fast, trying to race ahead of another bus alongside.

Given the history of road safety - or rather the lack of it - in El Salvador, either version is equally credible. Most of the country's privately owned buses are at least 10 years old and many have been bought cheaply in the United States after a long life of service as school buses. Once in service, standards are not kept up and many buses routinely drive around without rear lights, or worse still, with bald tires.

Fiercely competitive
The authorities do little to remedy the situation, despite new transport legislation tightening up the penalties. Just last week five people died and another 27 were injured when another bus overturned on the outskirts of the city after its brakes failed. Although many more people own a car nowadays, demand for public transport is still high in El Salvador and running a bus route is highly profitable and also fiercely competitive.

But rather than improving standards, the competition has led to fist-fights between rival bus drivers, and - as probably happened in Monday's crash - full speed races down the highway to see who can pick up the passengers first. – BBC News

Bonus
A six of BP! Ale to anyone who delivers a major Indian daily with the headline "Cow almost hit by crowded bus".

   INDIA, Oct. 26 – At least 27 Indian pilgrims were killed on their way home from a temple when their bus swerved to avoid hitting a cow and skidded off a mountain road into a deep gorge yesterday.

The accident happened in Punjab, 70 miles north-east of Amritsar. Police said the driver lost control when he tried to avoid hitting the cow - a sacred animal to Hindus - which was crossing the road.

The bus hurtled down the mountainside and became entangled in trees about 80 feet below, but some passengers crashed through the windscreen and fell 600 feet into the gorge. – Century Newspapers

Of note
62 seats, 94 passengers, for a SROP (standing room only plunge) index level of 1.52. (Anything over 1.5 is particularly grim.)

Ob Question
The bus rolled backwards 500 yards. Wouldn't that beeping wake the driver up?

NAIROBI, Kenya – An overcrowded bus plunged into a river in central Kenya, killing at least 11 students and a teacher, newspapers and television reported Saturday.

The accident occurred Friday when the bus went out of control while climbing a steep incline, then rolled back 500 yards into the Thuci River, 95 miles northeast of Nairobi, the reports said. It was not possible Saturday to obtain a police report on the accident nor the exact number of dead and injured.

The 62-seat bus had 94 passengers -- including 72 students.

It was heading from central Kenya to a national agricultural show in Nairobi. Fanuel Mwiti, a teacher who survived the plunge, told the East African Standard the driver, who had earlier complained of exhaustion, was allowed to pull off the road and sleep for a short while.

"`To our surprise, after 20 minutes, the driver ... started the engine and drove off,'' Mwiti said, adding that the driver appeared to have dozed off just before the bus went off the road. – AP

Of note
In order to get some shut-eye the driver, it is alleged, lets a 19 year-old soldier take the wheel.

Ob Question
Where's the amphetamines-to-stay-awake drivers that we've been reading about for so long?

Genus
Pilgrimus Morticus

Of note
"Police said at least 45 people were on board the bus, based on the number of seats. Witnesses said the bus could have been carrying 80 to 100 people ..."

Ob Question
Seeing as this was the second incident of its kind a relatively brief period, might people consider another form of transport – anything – to a religious ceremony involving a body of water.

Also
SROP index level as high as 2.22 (likely a record).

Other news reports (assuming the Teutonic translation was correct) put the death toll at 80.

Dozens Drown in India Bus Accident

UCHANGIDURGA, India -- A crowded bus plunged into a pool near a temple Thursday in the southern state of Karnataka, and dozens of people drowned, police said.

The exact number of victims was not immediately known, as there were no records kept of passengers on board the private bus. Police said at least 45 people were on board the bus, based on the number of seats. Witnesses said the bus could have been carrying 80 to 100 people, as it was crowded and there were many people sitting on the roof.

They said the victims were pilgrims leaving a Hindu religious festival celebrated at a nearby hilltop temple. The 100-foot square pool is used for ritual bathing. The bus skidded down some stone steps into the water, local residents said. Four people jumped off the bus and were unhurt. But there were no other survivors, witnesses said.

The accident occurred in the evening in this village near the town of Davanagere, some 1,250 miles southwest of New Delhi. Police and local residents dove into the algae-covered, muddy water -- working without oxygen tanks -- and pulled out nine bodies by late night. Three cranes were brought in, but the metal cables tied around the bus snapped. Police were trying to bring larger cranes to the area by daybreak.

They pulled out the bodies of four men, four women and one child, said local police chief Gopal Hosur. On June 8, a bus fell in an irrigation lake in a nearby village in the same district, and 94 people drowned.
Associated Press