Coach carrying children overturns - 72 year old driver!

[katzg]

ok it was an accident but what was a 72 year old doing driving a coach load of children! surely he should be long sicne retired?

coach crash

er, there are plenty of over 70s who are perfectly good drivers. What a bizarre and ageist comment.

Katzg I'm guessing your parents are fairly young!

I hope I am still working at 72 otherwise I will be living in a cardboard box under a bridge

I was surprised too katzg. I thought there were stricter regulations for coach/HGV licences.

This is one of our local schools btw: one of my friends was in the front coach and his son was in the third coach of the convoy. (The middle one overturned.)

Apparently seatbelts saved lives today.

Jeez is it 1950 here today?

Older people and pregnant ladies WORKING - what next eh?

agree morningpaper....!

Thats pretty near me too, how horrible

Poor children, I'm glad coaches have seatbelts in now, never had them when I was at school.

I've just checked and PSV licence holders have to have submit a medical form signed by their doctor every year after the age of 65: that sounds pretty rigorous to me.

Sorry i didn't mean to come across ageist, i just thought that when i hit 70 the last thing i would want to be doing would be to be still working, i plan on retiring as young as possible.

damn, i'm not going to have any option but to work at 72 if i am still alive. i'm stony skint and have NOTHING to put aside for retirement.

Katz, I was suprised too. I know you were not be ageist in way, shape or form! In this area of work the majority of people are much younger than this - not ageist, just fact. Glad to hear there is good rigourous checking of everyone involved in this job field though.

Very sad. Glad it was not more serious that it was

thanks Hula

Expat - i've decided that dd1 is going to be a doctor and DD2 an lawyer, they will keep me in my old age!

I am on the fence with this one. My Dad is 70 and is an HGV driver. He is still working, albeit part-time. I think it does my Dad the world of good to still be working, he is the sort of guy who just would suit being fully retired (apparently his own Dad was the same and worked until the day he died) but I do have my concerns about older people behind the wheel of lorries and buses. I suppose it's just because I notice a change in my Dad over the last five to ten years (probably the same sort of changes we all notice in our parents as they age )and although he is still passing medicals etc and I can't help but worry about it.

Thank goodness everyone survived and hope those who are in hospital have a speedy recovery.

As long as he was medically fit to drive, don't see his age as an issue. Could be any number of reasons for the crash.

My sister was in a coach accident on a school trip years ago - in the days before seatbelts. The driver steered into bushes when the brakes failed on a very steep hill. Unfortunately the bushes were on the edge of a sheer drop into a quarry and the coach was, according to my sister, teetering on the edge. The school hushed the whole thing up so we never found out exactly what had happened (imagine that today...). The children all wrote thank you letters to the driver but he was sacked. My sister believed he'd saved them, partly by stopping everyone panicking after the crash too (so they didn't move about).

Don't wish to sound like I am being funny but how many of us check & double check in our 30's which we didn't do in our 20's or now we have kids. I know my Dad, being 74 and never ever had accident ever is still a very careful driver. Its the other we have to worry about, the younger ones who take risks.

Not that this had anything to do with the original post. Hope the children are oK

My dad is 72 and still drives coach parties from time to time. He is the best and safest driver I know

My dad is 75 and still works and drives,he's crap driver mind you,always has been.He retook his test recently (lives in Canada),and passed.I kind of wish he'd failed.

ggirl