17th January 2007

The safest form of road travel, if you believe the statistics, is by coach. But the horrific National Express crash will have some people questioning the official figures, and rightly so. Could children be a tad more secure in a modern family car with proven crash-protection technology? And who do you trust more: yourself or a ‘professional’ coach driver you don’t know?

	Statistics claim coaches are the safest form of road transport – but the trouble is, these figures don’t tell the whole story

And if, heaven forbid, a vehicle does topple over, isn’t it best that it has lots of safety devices and as few people on board as possible? Conversely, isn’t it the worst of all worlds when a particular mode of transport is carrying scores of passengers and isn’t fitted with airbags for occupants, many of whom aren’t even wearing seatbelts? That’s assuming the vehicle has such life-saving measures. Incredibly, many coaches still don’t have to be fitted with belts. And have you ever been able to strap yourself in on a commuter bus? Me neither.

People don’t tend to put their lives on the line by stupidly unbuckling themselves, then walking around moving cars. But they do exactly that on coaches. Cars don’t have passengers marching off to the bar or loo, or tour guides precariously standing up at the front with their backs turned to the windscreen. Coaches do. Every person in every car I ever travel in these days wears a seatbelt. If only that was true of coach and bus occupants. Luggage and other potentially dangerous flying objects (umbrellas, for example) are always stored in the boot and very definitely banned from the driving/passenger compartment of vehicles I’m in charge of. The opposite is often the case aboard packed public service vehicles.

I think National Express is a reasonable, respectable and responsible firm. But if you want to believe that, as a general rule, buses and coaches sometimes of a questionable age and history, operated by organisations you know little about and driven by strangers, are safer for you and your loved ones than travelling in your own family car, be my guest. Put your kids, your partner or your granny in the hands of an entrepreneurial coach company and its employees who, considering they sometimes have as much responsibility as airline pilots, are poorly paid and therefore – with respect – hardly the cream of the crop.

The trouble with tables which suggest coaches are the ‘safest form of road transport’ is that, although they look good on paper, they don’t always tell the whole story. And they can give people a horribly false sense of security. We all know there are lies and statistics. But did you also know a British Government (not necessarily this one!) once invited a senior mathematician, accountant and statistician for job interviews, prior to the compilation and publication of some highly controversial ‘facts and figures’ that needed to be spun to a sceptical public? When interviewed, the mathematician was asked what two plus two makes. “Four,” he replied, thereby talking himself out of the job.

When the same question was put to the accountant, he said: “Usually, but not always, four.” But the statistician was hired because he came up with the answer his prospective employer wanted to hear. “If you want two and two to make four, that’s fine,” he explained. “But if you need two and two to equal something other than four, then that’s fine, too.” Treat official statistics with great caution. I happen to know that, on average, they are precisely 62.8 per cent misleading, made-up or inaccurate!

Mike Rutherford writes for the Times, Daily Telegraph and Independent, presents ITV’s Pulling Power and is founder of the Motorists’ Association

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