With your help, we can make your child's coach journey safer!
With your help, we can make your child's coach journey safer!
Latest: March 26, 2017
So little time left - we need you to help please...
If your child is going to an adventure holiday site abroad, perhaps with a school, would you be happy to know that some shower facilities are shared between staff, children and coach drivers? Coach d…
Read moreBUSK works UK-wide to safeguard your child on school trips. We need to raise £5,000 for a legal opinion of whether tour operators have a case to answer when they fail to provide adequate sleeping arrangements for coach drivers who may just be driving your child on school trips abroad. A European Commission Report showed that 30% of coach crashes were linked to driver fatigue with the figure likely to be much higher.
In 2016 a British coach driver admitted in court that he fell asleep at the wheel. He crashed resulting in the death of a teacher. Many other pupils travelling on the coach sustained serious permanent injury. Pupil and teacher safety is compromised every time a school books a trip abroad with a tour company that cuts corners by not providing adequate accommodation that allows each driver to relax, rest and sleep to ensure they are safe to drive. Driving a coach requires a high level of concentration. At adventure holiday sites drivers are even expected to sleep in tents and sometimes in sheds! Tents cannot stop noise entering them so drivers just don't sleep the way they need to. We must all remember that drivers are not on a camping holiday with the pupils...they are working and must have adequate sleeping arrangements. And it's not only the amount of sleep, but the quality of sleep that is so important. Disturbed sleep puts everyone at risk!
Most schools do not ask a tour operator how drivers are accommodated when they book the trip, yet this is key to ensuring the highest safety standards are met. It means the difference between being driven by a driver that is fully alert and one that is clearly not. That can literally be the difference between life and death. We don't want to stop school trips because coach travel can be very safe as long as drivers have had proper sleep. There is such a simple solution to close the safety breach. Please help us to seek a legal opinion surrounding those responsible to ensure your child's safe journey so they are driven by a coach driver who is completely refreshed each time s/he gets behind the wheel.
A legal opinion on whether those tour companies that compromise passenger safety by not providing suitable accommodation have a case to answer is essential. We need your help to reach our target of £5,000 to get that opinion. If you have a child of your own that is about to go on a school trip abroad, or, a grandchild, niece, nephew, neighbour or friend's child, then let them know about this unacceptable safety breach. We need everyone's support and certainly, the thousands of coach drivers that have been in touch with us to appeal for help can't all be wrong, can they? They say no-one is listening. Are you?
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Nightcap
March 26, 2017
So little time left - we need you to help please...
If your child is going to an adventure holiday site abroad, perhaps with a school, would you be happy to know that some shower facilities are shared between staff, children and coach drivers? Coach drivers say they worry they could be accused of something they have not done. This practice is not in line with local authority national guidance for safeguarding children and is just one of the issues we need a legal opinion on.
On these types of holidays, drivers are also often given tents to sleep in but they are not on holiday - they are working. This means they need somewhere quiet to sleep so they are not disturbed. Drivers also worry that they and children are housed in tents and believe that they should not be in the same area as the children. In fact, they believe they should be completed off site from the party they drive. As a parent or responsible adult, do you think we should be concerned? We do!
Driving a coach demands a high level of concentration. Coach drivers must have suitable accommodation to get a good nights sleep so they are fully alert behind the wheel. They also should never be placed in situations where they could find themselves compromised. Sharing shower blocks with kids does exactly this! Sleeping in tents yards away from tents where children are sleeping also does this.
Please pledge today and share the link to this page with everyone you know. We only have 11 days left to reach our target of £5,000. We can still do it with your help.
Nightcap
March 20, 2017
We need you to help us please!
We have just over two weeks left to meet our target of £5,000. Please, please, pledge your support. I would like to appeal to every coach driver, every parent and grandparent to pledge a £1. If coach drivers are worried they will be identified, don't be - you can sign yourself as Anon.
We can only succeed if we work together. Parents, your child will come home from school one day and ask to go on one of these trips. Help us to make that trip much safer by supporting us now.
Thank you.
Nightcap
March 13, 2017
We are starting to get support from tour companies!
Great news! We are starting to get responses from tour companies with one telling us that they thought it was a 'given' that coach drivers were looked after properly. This should be a clear message to those unscrupulous tour companies that some within their own industry understand how important it is that drivers get their proper sleep.
We even had a pledge from one tour company. BUSK emailed around 60 tour operators last week. So far around 10% of them have responded, mostly to say they agree with us and that they always provide what we are asking for and that is that every driver gets a room of their own. Sadly, the majority of companies we contacted have not responded. What does that tell you!
Please keep sharing our link to this site and pledging whatever you can so we can meet our target of £5,000 by the 7 April 2017. Every £1 counts.
Thanks!
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