Road safety
Dare to hop on a bus
David W. Wragg
The British have always prided themselves on a high standard of safety in public transport. Accidents happened abroad, where trains and buses plunged into ravines as a Matter of course, andany journey was an adventure reserved for the brave or the insane. Here, the bus or train, if late, was at least on the basis of better late than never.
NaturallY, the recent spate of serious bus and coach accidents has come as a shock, and public confidence cannot fail to have been undermined by six serious accidents and some fifty deaths in three months. A less tragic series of events than this would have made the press and politicians sit up and take notice, so it really comes as no surprise at all that there are demands for inquiries and the inevitable suggestions for improving safety standards.
To put the matter into its proper perspective, public transport is not a free-for-all, and the Road Traffic Acts set down a system of regulation which covers competition and safety. All buses and coaches require a Certificate of Fitness, issued for up to seven years, to confirm that they conform with safety standards — particularly in their design and equipment — and then have annual Public Service Vehicle licences, basically a system of record so that vehicles can be inspected by Department of the Environment officials. Drivers have to pass an exacting test and medical examination. Regular services and tours require a Road Service Licence, which can be withdrawn if malpractices are discovered, and driving hours spent on nonscheduled services have to be recorded.
The system falls down in several ways. Part-time drivers, amounting to one in four of all bus and coach drivers, do not have to produce any record of their other working hours, although this must affect their ability to handle a vehicle safely. Then too, any reasonably reliable operator will often have his vehicles missed by the vehicle examiners who are often pre-occupied checking on less responsible operators.
It is also a sad fact that modern design trends have made vehicles less safe. Large areas of glass are obviously a hazard in an accident, added to which is the reality that no vehicle in production today has seats which will stay in position in a bad accident, let alone provide seat belt anchorage points. Prototype safety seats have been designed for the Leyland National standard bus, but few, if any, vehicles have entered service with this type of seating.
If suggestions for seat belts are impractical for current designs, so too are those for governors to be fitted to regulate vehicle speeds. Governors work on engine speed, not road speed, and a governed engine gives drivers real problems in climbing hills, particularly with anything like a full load.
The speed limits for buses and coaches are 10 mph higher than those for other commercial vehicles, 50 mph on ordinary roads and 70 mph on motorways, and there is no ban on using the outside lane of three lane motorways. This is not so silly as it sounds, since the body of a bus or coach is more rigid than the load on the back of a lorry, and higher speeds can be maintained with greater safety — but of course, the gust effect of a coach on a small car passing is just as bad as for a lorry, and it may be that the 60 mph speed limit and ban on third lane use applied to lorries on motorways should also be applied to coaches.
Long term, buses and coaches require higher power to weight ratios to provide better acceleration and hill climbing, not only to avoid causing congestion, but also to end the high speed run up to hills which can be so alarming to passengers. A good "safety" design, with strengthened floors and improved seat anchorages, as well as provision for seat belts, must also be a priority, but would probably take several years to achieve, and another fifteen before present day vehicles were largely, but .still not entirely, replaced. Of course, provision of belts is no guarantee of use.
Yet, many accidents involving buses and coaches are caused by other road users, particularly private motorists who do not allow for the increased size or speed of the modern coach. It would be wrong if the bus and coach operators, their employees and their passengers, were to be penalised by higher cost vehicles and speed restrictions because of the attitude of other road users. A far higher degree of road safety education is needed, for all drivers. After all, when a car moves out of a side turning into the path of a fast moving heavy vehicle, who really is to blame for the accident?
Previous page
