Yesterdays Indy had an article about an “Arriva-like” bus that caught fire in the Land Hesse in Germany. It got me thinking a little about these Mercedes Citaro buses and all the problems they have faced: not just in Malta but also in the UK and Germany to mention but a few. You may probably have heard of the Boeing Dreamliner’s issues (the 787) that forced most of the newly launched planes to be grounded. That is the way to go normally – it’s not the first time we have heard of a major car company calling back a particular model due to its defective nature being dangerous to users.
So why does the Mercedes-Citaro model (not sure if more specification is needed here) not get called back too? The more we hear about buses catching fire or stalling the more I wonder whether we are not all too eager to rush to blame the planning and the purchasing (which was atrocious of course) and whether we forget that there is a manufacturer that should to a certain extent be made responsible for certain shortcomings.
In other words while the planning and introduction of the Arriva service was definitely just a few steps short of a cosmic failure this should not overshadow the fact that the problem with these buses (aside from the ridiculous idea of putting behemoths on Malta’s tiny roads) is also something technical that should be traced back to the maker.
That, if nothing else, should justify the reasonable grounding of a large part of Arriva’s fleet until a solution to these spontaneous combustions is found.
