Is there a list of names of dead and injured children available in Internet?

So unbelievably tragic - the first news I read today and can't get off the mind. May they all rest in peace...

Very sad indeed, lets pray they'll rest in peace

I was also wondering where the big water barriers or large plastic barricades made for this solid concrete opening were at like they have back home to keep cars from hitting something like that head on.. or why son't they have them? This brings me back to the poor way they put up the red and white boards 15 meters in front of a construction site and you have all of a sudden uppps brake!!!

Yes I've also read the reports that a DVD may be to blame, but I truly hope to god it isnt found to be the root cause.

A tradgedy like this is hard enough to bear, and for the families of all involved little will ever remove the pain, but consider this, if there was a mechanical failure or medical incident that is one thing, but to find out your beloved perished over something truly avoidable....

Not getting on a high horse, just making a point:

Aviation vs. Road Transportation.

In the aviation industry, we have Cockpit Voice Recorders and Flight Data Recorders.

Yes, we have incidents and accidents, but everything is studied in great details by professionals and the results communicated worldwide. We try and learn from our mistakes and/or technical failures.

What's the equivalent to an FDR in a coach??
Is there anything??

Would a voice recorder be workable?
At least, a Coach data recorder to record driver inputs and basic speeds and accel/decel rates would be possible...surely...

It is called Tachograph.
Records speed versus time for each driver.

Even if a lot simpler nowadays, flying a plane is a bit more complicated than driving a coach though, and there are a lot more possible failure modes some of which you cannot investigate in the absence of a FDR.

It all boils down to cost / benefit unfortunately... what are we going to learn from a "distracted driver made wrong inputs that drove coach into wall" voice / data download? Passengers, don't distract the driver - driver, don't allow yourself to be distracted? I guess we already know that...

If this turns out to be true, there would surely have to be a rethink about how coach drivers could be given greater protection from being distracted by passengers and prevented from handling entertainment systems while driving (e.g. take out the the DVD player/radio completely or make it impossible to reach while driving).

I know of one coach driver who had already had one accident (in which he had been injured) from when a can of coke rolled down the aisle and got stuck under his brake pedal.

He then made a rule that banned cans or bottles on any coach that he drove and his second rule was that no-one was allowed to talk to him unless it was an emergency.
He only changed the videos when the coach was parked up.

He didn't consider that too much. It made him appear a kill joy to the passengers but that was just his driving persona.

In Belgium they are saying that the DVD was not to blame. It seems likely that the DVD was handed to a the second driver or teacher and not the actual driver.
(info direct from one of the children on the bus)
Of course the people closest who would have seen exactly what happened would be the ones who perished in the accident.

It is a very, very tragic event.

Passive and active road safety has considerably improved over the decades. For ex. in Switzerland 1992 834 people died and 7844 were seriously injured. 2010 this number dropped to 327 and 4458. Source.

Every accident is somehow unique on its own (Here an overview of previous accidents with coaches). An obvious 'improvement' may have prevented the outcome of this particular accident but may not be the best solution in every case.

Maybe next time, with a deflecting design, it could be a lorry hitting the wall, bouncing onto the other lane, where a coach with 50 grannies coming back from a bridge tournament crashes into the lorry.

It is also important to find the root cause of the accident. It is much better to prevent an accident from happening then to only mitigate the risk of the outcome.

1. No, it doesn't "seem" to be the cause.
2. There were two drivers (both died)

3. "Makes no sense at all"
No, tragedies like this don't. Whilst I appreciate the need for answers, is it too much to ask to keep the fervor of the speculation a little more toned down?

Sorry to sound ratty.

Sorry if my post was not clear. I've done so many coach trips with kids as the teacher in charge, and this accident touches me in so many ways, as a mother, a grand-mother and a teacher. What I meant was that it would make no sense for the driver to have handled the video, if a video was indeed involved (and most school trips by coach do include videos to keep the kids quiet)- as in my experience these would always have been handled by the co-driver, and NOT by the driver. I agree we should wait for a proper analysis to be made, but as the video was mentioned by the Press- it really struck a chord with me, as I have been the one to hand over videos to the co-driver to play once we'd got underway.

One of the dead was a Brit.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17396434


Not that it makes it any more tragic, but you know...

I've got friends and relatives in Belgium (2nd cousin married a Belgian and has a couple kids that age), so it does hit close to home.

Tom

Le Soir strikes again. As with the completely fabricated 'speeding' article, they tend to be quite sensationalist, and rather good at spreading rumours.

Naturally the person driving the bus would not be inserting DVDs, the second bus driver would be responsible for that. Also, having been in these buses (during the days of VCRs), I don't think it was possible to see anyone inserting a tape from the back of the bus (where the survivors were).

I also agree that I am getting very annoyed with the rumours (lies) being spread. This is a truly tragic incident and must be the nightmare of all parents.

What has been comforting for me has been the support shown by the community towards the victims and their families. The emergency services were also by all accounts a credit to the community and to the country.

Too often after such incidents basic systematic reckless decisions were made in order to save a few cents. It was welcoming to hear that by all accounts the company was highly professional and went beyond the legal regulations to provide for safety for its passengers. Lives were thus not needlessly put at risk.

Whole communities are going through one of the worst scenarios thinkable. I can imagine reading daily of new lies on how the accident happened only increases the pain felt. It will most definitely be causing additional needless stress on the family, friends and colleagues of the 2 drivers who are being wrongly accused of certain actions. The prosecutor has just recently said that not one witness saw the driver doing anything with a DVD so as with the rumours of the bus speeding this was mostly likely lies by either the newspapers to increase sales or by these unnamed sources. Either way I really do take issue with newspapers spreading these baseless rumours which is possibly causing additional suffering towards friends and family of the victims just to increase sales. The experts should be left to find out what happened and the media should get back to reporting facts rather than fiction.

It may not be too much to ask for, but the press "needs" details until 23.30, for the issue of the following day

Here again, I suppose that the pressures on the journalists, primarily from the editor-in-chief, to write something "which sells", are absolutely enormous. You can say that this is not an excuse. Right, but a reason it is.

Tunnel safety to be assessed after fatal crash

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_ne...l?cid=32314998