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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Do you feel nervous about coach trips??

122 replies

girlfriend44 · 18/07/2025 10:53

Do you let your children go on school coach trips?
Do you go on coach trips?
They seem to be very notorious for crashing.
Another school coach trip ended in disaster yesterday?
Sadly one child died.
Does it make you nervous, and what is it about school minibuses and coach trips?😥
AIBU?

OP posts:
Digdongdoo · 18/07/2025 12:07

girlfriend44 · 18/07/2025 10:59

Coaches do seem to overturn in general quite a bit.

No they don't

TwattyMcFuckFace · 18/07/2025 12:08

WitchesofPainswick · 18/07/2025 12:03

This was in the 80s - the coach drivers were often drunk, we had to report one to the police for propositioning 11/12 year old girls, and careering off the road in a particular rural area and having to get police help out of ditches was common.

Every term though? 😳

I've never heard anything like this, during the 80s or at any time to be honest.

FurForksSake · 18/07/2025 12:08

I also feel it’s important to add that the parents who chose to send their children on that trip did not make a mistake, did not expose them to excess risk and didn’t make the wrong decision.

This is a tragedy, an unimaginable tragedy and the pain the families and friends and school community experienced should not be increased by second guessing the decisions made.

those children will have had a wonderful day at the zoo with their friends and classmates and those days are precious. No one could imagine it would end like this.

kiss your kids, cherish them and remember life is a gift and utter shit truly does happen.

checkingjustchecking · 18/07/2025 12:10

Hobnobswantshernameback · 18/07/2025 11:13

What a foul tasteless thread to start full of factual inaccuracies after yesterday's tragedy

Exactly my first thought!

EasyPeasyStrawberrySqueezy · 18/07/2025 12:12

girlfriend44 · 18/07/2025 10:53

Do you let your children go on school coach trips?
Do you go on coach trips?
They seem to be very notorious for crashing.
Another school coach trip ended in disaster yesterday?
Sadly one child died.
Does it make you nervous, and what is it about school minibuses and coach trips?😥
AIBU?

Really??
What next, we shouldn't send children to school, ride their bikes or play in a park because unfortunately, no matter how many precautions are taken, tragedies are sometimes unavoidable.
You're trying making a thread out of a horrific incident

cardibach · 18/07/2025 12:14

WitchesofPainswick · 18/07/2025 12:03

This was in the 80s - the coach drivers were often drunk, we had to report one to the police for propositioning 11/12 year old girls, and careering off the road in a particular rural area and having to get police help out of ditches was common.

Nope, still not buying it. My coach to school days were 70s/80s. No seatbelts and overcrowding were the norm but not drunk drivers or regular accidents.

ChandrilanDiscoDroid · 18/07/2025 12:14

WitchesofPainswick · 18/07/2025 12:03

This was in the 80s - the coach drivers were often drunk, we had to report one to the police for propositioning 11/12 year old girls, and careering off the road in a particular rural area and having to get police help out of ditches was common.

That had nothing to do with coaches as a mode of transportation and everything to do with one incredibly shady transport company. Forty years ago.

Astleyxyz · 18/07/2025 12:16

So are we going to have a generation of children who never go anywhere or do anything because of helicopter parents ?

WitchesofPainswick · 18/07/2025 12:17

ChandrilanDiscoDroid · 18/07/2025 12:14

That had nothing to do with coaches as a mode of transportation and everything to do with one incredibly shady transport company. Forty years ago.

Maybe - who knows? It was a coach for a religious school and a "special school" as was in a rural area and was absolute carnage TBH!

Mikii · 18/07/2025 12:18

I think lots of people struggle to assess and interpret risks. Car crashes happen every single day. People die in car crashes all the time. But most people don’t think twice about getting in a car. People seem to think things like coach crashes happen all the time but when asked to name a few they struggle.

A similar example is I love theme parks and rollercoasters. I can’t count how many people have asked me if I get worried going on them because of all the crashes. I ask which crashes? Most people say oh that one and Alton towers and…… the others. They actually can’t really name any. Because it’s very rare. Yes they happen. And they make the news when they do. But if you add up how many people go on rollercoasters world wide every day and how many people die or are injured it’s very low. I can name more plane crashes than rollercoaster accidents. But there’s still many many many more deaths from cars and just at home than there are from rollercoasters and plane crashes.

WitchesofPainswick · 18/07/2025 12:18

It never overturned but several times got stuck with a 'lean' which was fun if you were on the top and had to make your way out

Astleyxyz · 18/07/2025 12:18

WitchesofPainswick · 18/07/2025 12:03

This was in the 80s - the coach drivers were often drunk, we had to report one to the police for propositioning 11/12 year old girls, and careering off the road in a particular rural area and having to get police help out of ditches was common.

Nonsense, I’m an 80’s kid, travelled on loads of coach trips and was perfectly fine

cardibach · 18/07/2025 12:20

WitchesofPainswick · 18/07/2025 12:18

It never overturned but several times got stuck with a 'lean' which was fun if you were on the top and had to make your way out

A double decker? Your experience gets more and more unusual. I’ve never seen a double decker used for school transport either in rural or urban areas.

KassandraOfSparta · 18/07/2025 12:21

girlfriend44 · 18/07/2025 10:59

Coaches do seem to overturn in general quite a bit.

No they don't. But when one does it is in the news because many more people are affected than when a car overturns.

You clearly have anxiety around this issue which is also making you seek out news stories about coach accidents, or notice them more than news about other accidents. Confirmation bias.

twilightermummy · 18/07/2025 12:22

I don't like admitting this but I always feel nervous when mine go off on a school trip. I'd never prevent them going but I'm always secretly worried. My sister said that she felt the same too as we were discussing yesterday's news.

I can't really avoid them when we're abroad but they make me super nervous hurtling around mountains and cliff tops too. I was never like this before children!

scalt · 18/07/2025 12:22

This is exactly why news is bad for you.

Mainstream news makes out that these sort of "disasters" happen all the time - they don't. For every one "coach disaster", there may be 299,999 coach journeys which happens without incident. Because they are rare, they get an inordinate amount of attention. As others have said, car crashes happen all the time, and are barely reported.

ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea · 18/07/2025 12:23

Hobnobswantshernameback · 18/07/2025 11:13

What a foul tasteless thread to start full of factual inaccuracies after yesterday's tragedy

I agree. As a parent there will always be some degree of worry about what your children are doing every day, even as they become adults. But in order that they, and you as a parent, can experience a normal life you have to put this to the back of your mind, as best as you can. This thread seems almost gleeful. Horrible.

FurForksSake · 18/07/2025 12:24

cardibach · 18/07/2025 12:20

A double decker? Your experience gets more and more unusual. I’ve never seen a double decker used for school transport either in rural or urban areas.

Edited

In the 90s I was transported to school on a classic route master double decker and a series of other classic buses and coaches. Homecounties semi rural.

Thedoorisalwaysopen · 18/07/2025 12:27

Of course I do. Because I don't make a horrendous and rare tragedy all about me.

SpottyAardvark · 18/07/2025 12:30

They seem to be very notorious for crashing.

Total nonsense. The opposite is true. Coaches and buses generally are an incredibly safe form of travel. The reality is that the level of risk is negligible.

Either OP needs professional help with her anxiety (in which case she has my sympathy) or this thread is a wind-up.

ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea · 18/07/2025 12:32

Hobnobswantshernameback · 18/07/2025 11:48

Don't think the op is looking for ideas for an article
having read their other posts they clearly are just stirring the pot with fanciful nonsense
if I was a journo I'd be offended that anyone this stupid was accused of being the same

Absolutely.

TwattyMcFuckFace · 18/07/2025 12:32

WitchesofPainswick · 18/07/2025 12:17

Maybe - who knows? It was a coach for a religious school and a "special school" as was in a rural area and was absolute carnage TBH!

And the drivers were above the drink driving laws?

Elleherd · 18/07/2025 12:34

Ex PSV (and HGV) driver, and O license holder, general interest in many things transport, recovery, repair, fleet, and traffic police/commissioner related, and tend to be fairly industry aware still.

You are absolutely scaremongering and froth whipping based on something other than facts, and it's in very poor taste and a shite thing to do in the wake of a tragedy.

What's wrong with you that you'd post such bilge, especially right now?

Modern coaches and buses in the UK are not 'notorious' for crashing, or turning over.
The majority of accidents involving coaches do not result in the vehicle coming of it's wheels.
Full or empty they're one of the safest forms of road transport.
Large numbers of all types are out on the roads day in, day out, transporting huge numbers of people of all ages, and returning without incident.

Many coaches and separately drivers go through their entire lives, and careers never involved in even a minor accident, let alone a major one.

School and uni minibuses driven by staff or team members have a higher rate of accidents but the vast majority of these are relatively minor.

Not counting damage caused by passengers, most repair damage to coaches results from other vehicles scraping them (often when parked) or rear ending them in traffic. Chips to windscreens from gravel/flying debris on motorways, and side panel damage from other vehicles shredding tyres, and general debris, glancing off them at speed.

Outside of that: driver reversing into bollard/wall, massively reduced since the advent of sensors, and driver catching edges of skirted sides on hidden rocks and other demarcation's at side of road/coach parks when parking up.

As with planes, helicopters, trains and trams, occasionally utter disaster strikes regardless.

It's headline news when a UK coach does crash and overturn, because a) it's very unusual, and b) if it's carrying children it's something we all react to, c) because of the numbers carried it has higher potential for disaster.

Yesterday's accident is sadly a particularly grim and unusual one in terms of what physically happened to the coach when it left the road.
Obviously of no comfort for some, but in safety terms it is notable that even in grim and unusual circumstances, what protects passengers in a crash generally held up well in an awful worst case scenario.
It's an absolute tragedy that the results aren't perfect, but isn't an indicator of general safety and the standard that coach companies operate at.
No parent or school could have foreseen what happened, and there's a point at which we have to take small chances in life.

ManchesterLu · 18/07/2025 12:38

Think about how many coach trips there are, compared to how often they crash. Your children are probably safer in the coach than walking to school.

ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea · 18/07/2025 12:39

cardibach · 18/07/2025 12:20

A double decker? Your experience gets more and more unusual. I’ve never seen a double decker used for school transport either in rural or urban areas.

Edited

There’s a coach company near to me which does a lot of school transport which started out in the 1970s with a fleet of old double deckers which must have been deemed
too old/unreliable by the regular bus company. Why someone figured they were safe for transporting school kids I don’t know, but we went on them regularly eg weekly transport to swimming lessons or for away school sports fixtures.