Images of the wrecked coach in Switzerland are enough to distress any parent. For those preparing to send their children on school trips or Easter holidays abroad the concern may be even more acute.
Operators insist that taking a coach or bus is the safest way to travel. Mandatory seatbelts for children over the age of 14 have helped, and European regulations tightening safety inside road tunnels should reduce risks further from 2014.
But the bus industry’s claims are not quite borne out by the latest official figures. In 2010, 8.2 people were killed or seriously injured in Britain per billion kilometers travelled.
That compares favourably with other forms of road transport: 15.1 car passengers were killed or seriously injured, 322.3 pedestrians, 552.7 cyclists and 1,021 motorcyclists. Air and rail proved to be even safer, however, with no fatalities recorded in 2010.
The data show that deaths among coach and bus passengers fell by 36 per cent to 9 in 2010. But the number of passengers who were seriously injured rose by 10 per cent to 392.
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Although the destroyed bus was reasonably new, fitted with seatbelts and run by a reputable operator, it was not immediately clear if the children on board were wearing seatbelts. The Year 6 students would have been mainly 11 and 12, which is younger than legal requirement for wearing safety belts.
Since 1997 it has been compulsory for all coaches or minibuses carrying more than three children on organised trips to have seatbelts. All coaches built after 2001 must include seatbelts. But children under 14 are not required to wear them.
Road safety professionals say that it can be dangerous for young children to use seatbelts without boosters or protective seats to accommodate their size and weight. But the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents encourages all passengers to wear seatbelts at all times to reduce the severity of injuries.
Early reports from survivors of the Swiss crash suggest that seats may have been torn loose by the force of the collision as the coach hit a concrete tunnel wall head on.
International comparisons show that casualty rates in Switzerland are marginally higher among bus and coach passengers as a proportion of population than in Britain. However, the risk of being involved in a coach crash is lower than the UK in eight other European countries — Germany, Holland, Denmark, France, Italy, Spain, Austria and Sweden.
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These include the countries most British schoolchildren will be passing through over the spring break.
The sage advice to children may be to belt-up and enjoy the journey.