Unanswered questions from the M25 crash
By Jack Haslam
Two people were killed and up to 60 injured when a National Express coach crashed on a slip road linking the M4 and M25 last Wednesday night (January 3).
Our sympathies go out to the families and friends of the dead and injured.
There are however important health and safety issues that are raised by the crash that need answering. Most of the press speculation has centred on the issue of the stability of double-decker coaches and the question of seat belts, but there are other issues that those who control the passenger transport industry don’t want aired.
The focus on these issues diverts attention away from what is the basic cause of most accidents in road transport – driver fatigue.
Though it would be wrong to guess the outcome of the criminal proceedings suppose the court decides this accident was indeed caused by driver error, if so some very serious questions need to be asked:
What was the work schedule? Was the driver trying to make up lost time after he left London half an hour late?
• The driver comes from the central belt in Scotland. Presumably he had driven down the night before. What rest was he given during the day? What arrangements had his employer national coaches made to ensure that he could get proper uninterrupted sleep? Was he booked into digs?
What assumed Motorway speed was the timetable for the all night London to Aberdeen coach journey based on? If it was right on the 60mph barrier as is normal with overnight routes, then how can drivers running late possibly catch up and get back on schedule without driving at dangerous speeds?
It is questions like this that need answers.
Road transport including passenger transport and haulage is the most dangerous industry in Britain. The main cause of deaths and serious injuries is the unsafe system of work adopted by the employers based on long hours.
The British government has done much to gut the implementation of the European legislation on hours and to ensure that it is policed with ‘a light touch’. For instance in employing the concept of ‘periods of availability’ in the legislation it has allowed the employers to define as ‘non working time’ what should be seen as working time.
It is time for a renewed fight on the issue of drivers’ hours and a change to the enforcement regime.
The haulage industry for instance is riddled with the practice of falsifying tachographs, drivers who object to the illegal long hours get disciplined, threatened with having their licence taken away.
To give a flavour of the bus and coach industry and show just how serious the employers are about safety it is worth reporting that National Express have floated the idea that in future compulsory safety training should be done in drivers own time! Meanwhile, while pleading poverty that they are not able to pay drivers to train, they’ve spent £4.5 million on painting new logos on coaches and an estimated £1.5 million on a re-branding exercise which has seen all National Express workers receive a flyer telling them: ‘Repositioning our brand? Why are we doing this? National Express is an internationally famous brand but lacks distinctive emotional values and has no defined personality. We need brand essence and a clear focus … that is visible in what we stand for’. You couldn’t make it up.
It is a serious indictment of the TUC that it has not done more to scandalise the government for its role as a puppet of the hauliers and coach and bus companies. The whole labour movement should be rallying round the campaign led by the TGWU for stricter laws on drivers’ hours, higher pay and proper safety enforcement on our roads and motorways.
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M25 Crash
I think the above comment about driver hour are not entirely correct and there are other issues to address. In my experence as an HGV driver I have vertualy never been asked to break to drivers hour or taco regulations, in fact to do so would mean being sacked. If driver hour are breached it is useually due to drivers wanting to get home or earn money, and the incompetent supervisors allowing it. Some smaller cowboy company's my do this but they eventualy get found out and loss there operaters license and sometime people end up in jail. There is a problem with low paid eastern europian/Russian/Turkish hullers, as checks publish by the DVLA have reveled. There is a problem with driver fatigue particularity with double manning were one can to 22 hours on duty then have just 8 hours off. A big problem with motorway driving is boredom. Unfortunately drivers IQs are not checked. A lot of drivers do not want to finish late and will drive like lunatics, even through they are paid overtime. Where is the evidence that road transport is the most dangerous industry in Britain. I have not herd this before. Also see this......
Bus companies banned from roads
UK North bus
The bus companies have been permanently taken off the road
Two Manchester bus firms banned from the roads over safety issues have been ordered to stop operating permanently.
UK North and GM Buses, which share the same owner, were initially banned on 22 December over serious concerns about the safety of their drivers.
Both firms had their licences revoked for financial reasons and UK North has gone into administration.
Investigations by the Traffic Commissioner into the safety of buses and driver training are ongoing.
The investigation followed an inquiry into the death of a man in a bus accident in November.
Sign writer Martin Pilling, of East Moor Road, Worsley, Salford, was in the basket of a cherry picker when it was hit by a UK North bus on Wilmslow Road in Rusholme on 1 November.
Cherry picker - photo courtesy of Manchester Evening News
Martin Pilling died after he was struck by a bus in November
The 27-year-old fell in front of the double decker bus and died at the scene.
The UK North depot was examined three days later and concerns were raised over the safety of the vehicles and the amount of training the drivers had received.
This led to a public hearing in December where North West traffic commissioner Beverley Bell expressed concern over the safety of the firm's Polish drivers.
The hearing was told that 100 of the 130 drivers at UK North were Polish and that many had a poor understanding of English.
During the hearing Ms Bell, who works as an independent regulator for the passenger transport industry, claimed she was not convinced the drivers had been properly trained.
She made the ruling on Friday, after spending time weighing up the evidence.
The bus companies will be allowed to appeal her d
Also
Pay peanuts get monkeys