Pause for thought....
 

I dont often get too current-affairy on here, but do find the whole coach crash in the alps quite sobering. so many children, gone in a flash.....

As a parent the thought makes you shudder a bit doesnt it......

Lets hope for the ones that died, it was quick and painless, and for the survivors, that their injuries aren't too serious.:(

Terrible situation, how did the bus manage to hit that wall? Why was there not a barrier to prevent a vehicle hitting it?

The state the bus is in makes me wonder if they are Ncap tested

It looks like a "design flaw" in the tunnel to allow that impact to take place. :-(
Reminded me for some reason of Aberfan, which was much, much worse..................

A sad accident as a parent of 4 bratzs I am saddened to hear about this and just hope no one suffered :o

I agree, very sad, and as a parent who has had kids away on similar trips...........well just terrible really

The bus is in a shocking state, but I can only think that no-one was wearing seatbelts... 50% fatalities, but no way 50% of the bus was toast. There should have been more walk away alive than did from what I can see....

The Belgian coach that crashed in a motorway tunnel killing 22 children and six adults was not speeding at the time of the accident, a Swiss prosecutor has said.

Authorities also said early indications suggest the 52 passengers on board the vehicle were wearing seatbelts.

http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16188330

A terrible scene, I cant begin to imagine what the parents are going through, some not even knowing for a period if their children are still alive or not.

Looks like it might be mechanical failure as to why the coach suddenly veered to the right but it seems crazy to me that there was just a kerb and no protective arnco barrier to divert any vehicles from hitting the large concrete corner that the coach then struck.

An awful event. The kids have lost their futures and their families are now in that nightmare all parents hope never to see come real
Very upsetting

Crumbs....

Well I suppose they're going to say that...

Sudden deceleration could be responsible (kills plenty of motorcyclists), terrible tragedy, I would tend to agree with HPSauce on the idea of defective road/ tunnel design playing a part in this awful event.

Listened to Jeremy Vine yesterday and a few callers were on saying how that tunnel has those concrete bits sticking out with no arnco or other protection. If it had some Arnco, then chances are most of those kids would be alive. As Night Train said, if the bus hit it at any speed, then given the shape, it would just stop suddenly where a car might spin out.

And in a horrid irony, that concrete post protects a safety area!

French TV is a lot less squeamish about things like this [including suicide bombers and the like] Clearly a bad piece of tunnel design to allow the swerving bus [tyre blowout?] to hit the edge of the emergency lay-by as a full frontal impact. We hear that all passengers were belted but that all the seats concertina-d forwards. The pictures of the bus showed what otherwise appeared to be survivable.

Maybe we should all travel in rearward facing seats like the military aircraft, and otherwise sit towards the back of the bus/plane

Thats terrible, if the tunnel had been designed better, ie, with a fence, or no square-on wall, this would not have happened.
I have been through a few Swiss tunnels, they are scary places, some of them go on forever. I much prefer going round them and looking at the scenery.

They had photos of the school children that passed in the Daily Mail today. I really wish they hadn't put the photos on there, very sad. I can't begin to imagine how the parents must be feeling. When I have kids, I won't let them have powerful or unsafe cars, cases like these aren't very common but I wouldn't even want them going abroad without me now, on every school coach trip I've been on - I don't remeber the coaches having seatbelts, the last would have been around 2005-6. I know most of that is rich coming from me because I've been going abroad alone and driving big powerful cars from the day I passed my test, I won't tell them that.

You cant wrap them in cotton wool, and you cant predict when or how tragedy might strike. Crossing the road for school, falling down the stairs, or on a bus returning from skiing in the alps.

Its small consolation I know, but at least it was the return journey, and looking at the blog snippits in the news, their last few days were good fun.

I agree. My 3 sons all had powerful motorbikes then onto fast cars, after the obligatory Fiat Panda or Vauxhall Viva which let them have mishaps which were not costly.

Being a biker gives lots of skills a car driver will not pick up.

They are all in their 30s now, married with kids of their own saying 'my kids won't do the stuff I did' but they probably will :)

I'm sure the Swiss are very embarrassed with this and will get to the bottom of this. Work will be done in all their tunnels to sort these areas very soon.

Stew