FROM:    Simon Muir
SUBJECT: Coach crash in Germany
DATE:    Sun, 12 Feb 2006

[note: I posted this on ind-uk on Saturday lunchtime. Most of it was written around 10am when news of the crash was scanty. I note, more than 24 hours later, there is still little change in the actual reporting...]

I've just had a horrid few hours.

Yesterday afternoon my wife saw our oldest child onto a coach for a school skiing trip to Austria. It transpires that the Bristol coaches, travelling the same route, must have passed the spot where the fatal accident occurred, possibly only minutes before it happened.

As I write, we have news that our own children are safe, but obviously there is at least one family for whom this is not true, and, judging by the pictures, other children must be seriously injured. Our thoughts and prayers are with those families and with the family of the driver of the second coach, who also died.

Why have I posted this to ind-uk? The pictures I referred to above tell a rather different story to the BBC's version.

The BBC story is this: A bus broke down on the autobahn, and, although it stopped on the shoulder, a lorry collided with the offside rear corner. A second coach, unconnected to the first, then crashed into the first accident.

What is apparent from the brief video footage shown so far is this:

The first coach was indeed hit by the lorry in the rear offside quarter, collapsing the engine compartment into the back of the coach and destroying the lorry's tractor unit.

The key aspect however, so far omitted from the BBC report, is that the lorry was towing a commercially sized trailer IN ADDITION to the normal articulated tractor-trailer combination. The first impact spun the artic to face in the opposite direction, but the second trailer jack-knifed, apparently creating a V-shaped 'trap' across two lanes of the autobahn, into which the second coach crashed.

The driver of the second coach was reportedly killed, but, even if the second coach had been following the lorry at an entirely sensible distance, as I suspect, he would have stood no chance of escape BECAUSE OF THE SECOND TRAILER. It blocked two carriageways.

Now to my point: WE have such vehicles now, on British roads. This is thanks to Neil Kinnock's role as EU transport commissioner, when he forced us to accept them as road-legal. Rather than persuading the EU to adopt our higher standards of road safety, he did the opposite. Thus, we must now accept these mobile death-traps here, and even larger 'road trains' are now being proposed by our EU masters and their friends the continental road transport lobby.

Forget Eddie Stobart - the truly powerful lobbyists are the likes of Norbert Dentressangle,* reputedly the biggest haulier in Europe. With major retailers such as M+S moving to a just-in-time (JIT) logistical policy, carrying little or no stock beyond that on display, hauliers clout is increasing further. Internet fulfilment houses are another cause for increased road freight traffic.

If continental Europe chooses to accept the risks that's up to them. For us, this remains yet another area where big money is paramount, and thanks to the EU we can do little to restore safety by banning these leviathans, for which our roads were never designed.

Norbert Dentressangle: transport logistics and warehousing in Europe

Simon D. Muir