Bus Crashes Into Bridge, So First Priority Is PR Damage Control

Somebody covers up the logo on a bus that crashed
in Australia in a futile attempt to avoid bad
publicity The coverup just made the PR disaster worse. 

Driver error is the cause of a recent Australian bus crash that injured several passengers, at least three of them pretty seriously.

However, the bus company's reputation might be grieviously injured due to a variation of the "Streisand Effect" that took place in the immediate aftermath in the crash.

The Streisand Effect refers to efforts to suppress some information that backfires. Sometimes, if you try to suppress information you want to keep hidden, that information then becomes more widely distributed

The name comes from singer Barbra Streisand's 2003 effort to suppress an online photographic record of homes along the California coastline, which included hers. 

She sued to erase that online record, and the publicity resulting from that lawsuit made lots of people look up her house online. If she hadn't filed the suit, probably nobody would have given a damn about her stupid coastal California house.

In the case of the Australian bus crash, as rescuers arrived on the scene to rescue 15 injured passengers trapped under bus seats in the aftermath of the crash and local media arrived to record the event, somebody from the bus company, which is called Gold Bus Ballaret, arrived.

(Note, you can see security camera footage of the bus crash at the bottom of this post.)

That bus company representative from Gold Bus Ballaret was there not to help with the injured passengers or otherwise offer assistance, but to cover up the name of the bus company logo on the wrecked bus, so as not to provide fodder for bad publicity.

According to the Herald Sun of Melbourne: 

"'That's standard protocol whenever there is a vehicle involved in a accident,' said Gold Bus Ballarat director Matthew Baird. 'Notwithstanding the severity of the situation we're out to protect our brand and tom make sure that we don't tarnish our brand with a vehicle that is obviously in quite bad disrepair. It doesn't mean any disrespect.'

Yeah, well the spectacle of some guy trying to cover up the logo on a bus wrecked by what appears to be an incompetent or inattentive driver tarnishes your brand doesn't it?

Investigators did say driver error was to blame, and other motorists apparently tried to stop the bus, knowing it would never fit beneath the overpass, but it continued anyway.

Nobody beyond the local area in Australia probably would have ever known this bus wreck ever happened, but now the world does.

Streisand Effect, Mr. Baird. Look it up

Would You Ride In This Bus In Malta?

The steering wheel in this bus detaches while
the vehicle goes through traffic. But everybody
thought it was funny so I guess it's OK.  

Here's a random video of a bus driver in Malta who seems to be doing just fine driving through traffic, despite some rather scary difficulties with the steering wheel.

I would have gotten off the bus immediately, but none of the passengers seemed particularly worried either.

It was even a source of amusement when the bus driver, still moving through traffic, lifts the steering wheel off the console and shows it off to a passing truck driver. Yikes!

I guess Malta is a mellow place.

Watch:

Don't Be So Literal! "Drive Your Message Home" Bus Drives Into Home

A bus with an advertisement that read in part, "Drive Your Message Home," did just that, driving into a Masschusetts home recently. 

The literal bus hits a home 

Eight people were hurt and the house was pretty much destroyed. Luckily the injuries weren't serious.

I think the bus driver shouldn't have taken the advertising on the bus so literally.