Ban sees positive outcomes

 INDICATIONS are clear that banning tulait-tulait buses from the Highlands Highway will reduce road accidents noticeably, a senior police officer said.

Chimbu provincial police commander Albert Beli said yesterday that Chimbu normally recorded one or two road accidents involving the night buses in a fortnight.

But the trend has stopped over the first fortnight of the ban, he said.

Beli said it was too early to make a fair assessment but from the way things were going, the ban indicated positive outcomes.

“The passengers are happy that the drivers were stopped and told to have a proper sleep on the roadside before travelling the next day,” Beli said.

“The checkpoint communities are helpful by helping police and the travellers.

“The compulsory roadblocks will continue until such time that we see no tulait-tulait vehicles,” he said.

He said the body of a woman killed in a road accident two weeks ago is still at the Goroka Hospital.

The woman was a passenger in a tulait-tulait bus travelling from the coast up to the Highlands when the bus ran off the road.