Do you feel nervous about coach trips??

[girlfriend44]

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?

Your chances of choking to death are statistically miles above those of being killed or injured in an RTA, even more so one involving a coach or minibus.

But presumably you're not going to ban your children from eating?

No idea what to say to this - I spent ten years with a long rural coach journey to different schools and it was often a double-decker!

Drunk driving laws - yes of course they were in place but people often turned a blind eye to it. When we reported a coach driver for being a pervert with 11/12 year old girls we got a massive bollocking from school because I'd got him in trouble. Things were VERY DIFFERENT.

(I live in the same area now and driving rurally after drinking is, I'm afraid to say, pretty much the norm. Otherwise there would be no rural pubs...)

It depends on the user of seatbelts. If the students wear them, it's ok , but of they take them off when your back's turned... Accidents happen and I do NOT know what happened in this recent case, I'm speaking generally about when I went on school coach trips.

When I was a teacher, I was unpopular (the other teachers complained) because I wore mine with the bus was moving and wasn't one of the teachers who walked up and down the coach the whole time. (I think they shouldn't have, but it seems to be part of the teaching culture).

The children were old enough to know to keep their seatbelts on (year 5+).

It's the children's job to keep their seatbelt on. I kept mine on so that if we had an accident, I was more likely to get home to my children.

There's still a weird culture of not wanting to wear seatbelts on buses/ coaches.

I think it was less than a month ago there was a bus in Southampton carrying some 6th form students that came off the road into a tributary of the river Itchen - that same company has had 2 more serious incidents since..

My school bus was a double decker. We had 2 double deckers from my town to the school in the next town every day, as there were a large number of children to be transported (no secondary school in my town)

Drunk driving laws - yes of course they were in place but people often turned a blind eye to it.

The Police didn't.

In fact the police couldn't, especially when a coach load of children were involved.

And of course with it happening every term.

Coach accidents always make the headlines, even though there are relatively few of them . It doesn't make me nervous to travel by coach.

I am however fairly nervous about travelling by car and will choose not to do it where possible.

I assume you never let your child travel in a car or cross a road then?

Some people really are vultures who have to make everything about themselves @girlfriend44

Travelling by coach is much safer than travelling by car.

I did used to worry when the kids went on coach trips but I never told them that. They would get on the small school buses quite frequently as well, going to other schools for sports events etc but I didn’t know when they were happening. I just had to take a deep breath and hope for the best. I am a worrier though.

I took a coach to school for seven years, and the only accident was when a girl getting off ran out in front of an oncoming car. Plenty of people getting ill, but that’s not something to make you afraid of coach travel.

Accidents are rare but do happen and are horrific when they do happen, but I love coach trips and my children love them too.

My dad was a bus driver and I absolutely love travelling by coach. He was a brilliant driver and taught our whole estate how to drive in the 80s. He was a very calm, safe pair of hands and even won an award for his driving. He loved it. His colleagues were all like him too.

Really? My secondary school was 50 miles by bus along winding roads and there were only 2 accidents in 7 years, both really minor (sliding off road in poor weather conditions, no one hurt). The truth is travelling by roads is dangerous I think it’s statically the most likely cause of premature death. But I’d imagine school coaches are in less accidents than average as they’re generally driven safely and you’re more protected in a bigger vehicle than a car.

People crash cars regularly yet you still let your kids in car
People get knocked over regularly yet you still let your kids walk places
People fall off bikes yet you still let kids ride a bike
People fallout of bed yet you still let your kids sleep in one
My point is your being over dramatic

I wouldn't think anything of getting on a coach, just like I wouldn't think anything of getting on a bus, train or plane either.

The liklihood of an accident is incredibly low and if you lived your life actively avoiding all activities which bear an incredibly low risk you'd never leave the house.

Being in a car or using the road as a pedestrian or cyclist is higher risk (but still low risk overall - go out, travel and see the world! Just look before you cross the road - 50% of adult pedestrians in accidents didn’t look)

fatalities per billion miles travelled in UK 2023 (all age groups)

pedestrian 27
cycle 24
car occupant 3
bus or coach occupant 2

2023 data

children are most likely to be seriously killed or injured walking home from school and not looking properly before crossing. Data quite old but likely to standChild travel data

"Notorious for crashing"? No they're not.

Tens of thousands of coach trips happen every year. Not just school trips, but general school transport, not to mention the likes of National Express coaches.
They just make the news on the very, very rare occasion something happens, because it involves kids, and because it's unusual.

My kid's coach did actually crash on a trip, very very fortunately no one was injured. But it has made me understandably nervous. Even so, I've let her go on coach trips since then.

No I'm not nervous about coach trips, I'd rather put my child on a coach than car tbh.

Quelle surprise the OP has vanished

In truth I'm very anxious about my loved ones on any form of transport. Coach, plane, car, as there's frequent news stories about tragedies on all of them. However, I have to control myself because you simply can't go through life restricting experiences and expecting your family to restrict theirs through fear of worse case scenarios. Any of us could meet with a terrible accident at any time. So unless we sit in our homes wrapped in bubble wrap waiting to die of natural causes, we have to manage our anxiety and let them live.

Eh? No where near as often as cars do.

I go on loads of coach trips.

It's safer than me driving, trust me.

I probably should add some points here:

It was a proper crash, several vehicles were involved.

The coach was damaged, the front of it looked awful.

Everyone was wearing seatbelts.

No one was hurt. If anything it probably shows how safe the coach was, as all the damage didn't impact the passengers.

It was a double decker coach.