Please help us improve coach safety

[Safemeanssafe]

Two years ago our son almost died when he fell out of a faulty door on a coach at 60 mph. We have learnt many things during this time including the fact that the current safety legislation relating to coaches is deeply flawed.

Older coaches are not required to have the same safety features as newer coaches and operators can hide the true age of their coaches behind private number plates. When improved safety features are required by legislation these are typically only applied to coaches manufactured from that date and do not need to be retro-fitted onto existing coaches. One in five coaches on UK roads today does not have or need to have modern safety features under current legislation.

This is a terrifyingly dangerous combination that has to change and improved legislation is desperately needed.

We have launched a campaign to try to get the legislation changed and as a first step we are trying to get this matter debated in parliament. To do this we need to get 100,000 people to sign up to our e-petition.

We are specifically asking for the following:

· If safety legislation is passed this should apply to all coaches, not just ones manufactured from that date and all coaches should be brought up to standard or decommissioned.

· Operators should not be able to hide the age of their coaches behind private plates

· When booking a coach there should be absolute transparency over the age of the coach, the level of safety equipment it has (or a system of safety rating) and the licence safety/compliance history of the operator.

Without the above you really have no idea what kind of coach your child is getting on or how safe it is!

Please help us change this by following the link below and by sharing as widely as possible.

#safemeanssafe
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/163522

That quite shocking! And I'm sorry about your son, I hope he's better now.

I will sign but I suggest you ask this to be moved to chat so you get more traffic and hopefully more signatures. Good luck.

Signed.

I'm work in the coach industry so have an interest in this, and while I agree in principle, I do have some reservations.

Who's going to pick up the cost of retro fitting safety equipment?
What if a coach is unable to be adapted? You could have a situation where a 6month old, £250,000 vehicle is unusable. I don't know about other operators, but a situation like this would bankrupt us and put me out of work.

with regards the age of vehicles, I'd be more concerned with the operators maintenance abilities. A new coach could be dangerous without suitable maintenence but a vehicle given a thorough inspection every 42 days and faults repaired can go on for years with no safety issues.

Having said all that, some operators slip through the cracks. I know of one local coach company that I will not let my kids travel with. Despite their awful reputation, they still do a huge amount of work for local schools because they are cheap. Perhaps lobby LEAS to increase budgets for school trips so schools don't feel the need to go with the cheapest quote.

Operators are rated by DVSA. A decent operator would tell you their score on request.