Coach Safety For Children on Long Distance Trips By Catherine James At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

In this article I will attempt to continue my series of articles on coach hire safety. In these articles I will attempt to clarify to the lay person, what is and isn’t pertinent for making decisions concerning coach hire. My particular interest in this is to help people such as head teachers and governors make well informed decisions concerning coach travel for school trips.

It is mandatory for all new coaches to be fitted with seat belts for all passengers. Older vehicles need to be adapted to comply with this new European Union directive. The Department for transport is at present relying on the annual test, in conjunction with roadside enforcement together with ‘the Certificate of Initial Fitness test’ to assess the condition of these seat belts.

ETSC – European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) is a non profit making, independent organization, base in Brussels. Their remit is to reduce the number and severity of transport related injuries due to road accidents in Europe. ETSC was founded in 1993, its’ mission is to provide impartial expert advice on all issues relating to safety within the field of transport. This expert advice is provided to the European Commission, the European Parliament, and Member States. This independence is guaranteed via a mixture of funding sources, insuring that no one pressure group can have too much say in the workings of the organization.

The organizations’ remit is to research new approaches into improving road safety. They are also responsibility for monitoring and assessing the effectiveness or otherwise of these changes. New research data can then be supplied to the European Commission to inform its’ members of any new findings in this area. Ultimately, changes in EU legislation can be made as a direct result of the work done within this organization.

One of these directives (‘EU legislation’ 91/671/EEC) states that a child under 12years of age has to be restrained by an approved restraint system, suitable for the child’s height and weight. At present this directive does allow for children of 3 years and older (in Member States) to be restrained by an adult seat belt. That means that your child (under 12) may legally be restrained by an adult seat belt in England and within the countries of the European Union.

Resent research gives a figure of around 6,000 preventable deaths per year in the EU-15. There has been a European legal obligation in place since 1991 that stipulates that safety restraints must be used by all car occupants. However the actual number of drivers and occupants actually routinely using these restraints varies greatly between Member States.

Amazingly, despite the obvious safety advantages of seat belt, some coach hire companies still to this day flout the legislation and do not make provision for 100% of all passengers to have a properly functioning seat belt. In England alone we have at least 22,000 hire coaches. The job of routinely policing this enormous fleet of vehicles is a daunting one. In has been recently recorded that an estimated 20% of hire coaches full into the above category.

How to spot these coach hire companies before the trip day will be in my next article

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