Samoa's iconic wooden coloured buses, which have become tourist attractions in recent years, are a death trap and should be phased out of service. 

That is the view of Senior Supreme Court Justice, Vui Clarence Nelson who revealed that the safety of the buses will be addressed in a report to be issued by the Coroners Court. 

He said the popular wooden buses were unsafe for the travelling public, given the high number of accidents in recent years, with one such tragedy occurring in 2009 when eight people died including an infant. 

"Those pasi laupapa are death traps and that is another area covered in the report and how the Government should really look at them," Justice Vui said in an interview with Samoa Observer. "It should have been stopped ages ago. There are many other buses we can use like the manufactured buses which in the case of an accident would at least be safer whereas the wooden bus is just a wooden bus." 

"People driving too fast is another thing. You are not going to stop people from doing that because the roads are getting better and the cars are getting better. You are always going to have speeding and overloaded buses."

According to Justice Vui, the coroner's report will also look at the overloading of passengers on public transport and how fragile the wooden buses are. 

"A lot of these buses are in poor condition. There are laws and in this country, there are plenty but it is just the implementation and enforcing of these laws that are the problem," he said.

The Samoa Government introduced measures to phase out these locally manufactured buses in 2000 but abandoned the plan due to the high cost of replacing the old buses. 

Current requirements by the Land Transport Authority (L.T.A.) for individuals wanting to start a bus company or buy a new bus is that the bus has to be readily manufactured, unlike wooden buses.