Get over the M4 coach crash paranoia

Death on the roads! Nightmare coach crash! Take double decker coaches out of service! Britain has been in the grip of coach crash paranoia over the last two days after a nasty accident on the M4 close to Heathrow [BBC]. Suggestions in the newspapers have ranged from compulsory seatbelts (sensible) through to the idea to fit black box flight recorders to buses (mad - have these people never heard of the tachograph?)

Yet let's put this in perspective. While any road death is a tragedy, and my sympathy is with the victims, 2 people have died in this accident. Few in comparison to the 3201 people that died on UK roads in 2005 [National Statistics]. Bus and coach travel is really safe by any comparison, and to over-report a relatively minor incident like this has the same impact as the over-reporting of rail accidents - creating the implication that a means of travel is more dangerous than is actually the case.

So everyone, please get a grip. Coach travel is really adequately safe. You are far more likely to die when you walk across the street tomorrow on the way to the coach station to take a coach journey somewhere than you are to come to a nasty end in the coach itself. So let's all just be a bit more sensible about this.