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www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17362643
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What on earth is that wall doing in that position in a tunnel :(
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17362643
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We should not be speculating . . .
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>> We should not be speculating . . .
Why not?
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Why is the second link clickable, but the first one isn't?
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My first thought was the same as Dog's. What a ridiculous piece of design in terms of the tunnel wall.
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>> My first thought was the same as Dog's. What a ridiculous piece of design in
>> terms of the tunnel wall.
>>
And painted dark-ish green as well. The mind boggles, to be honest. They don't do NCAP tests down there, do they?
A terrible, unnecessary tragedy perhaps exacerbated by the tunnel design.
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>> And painted dark-ish green as well. The mind boggles, to be honest.
>>
You could paint it dayglo pink, cover it in flashing lights and put a barrier round it. A Belgian would still find a way to hit it.....
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That is a sad and vindictive comment to make.The driver might have had a medical problem we don;t know.
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>> That is a sad and vindictive comment to make.
Yes. It's all right to be heartless and offhand because the driver was Belgian. But these things happen to other nationalities too. I's just that mimsers trained to drive on the left think Belgians are rubbish drivers because some of them go fast sometimes. They can't help being a bit feeble and having to compensate by seeming heartless.
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Round these parts, Belgian plates are taken as a sign that the driver's a berk and to be avoided.
Belgian plates on an Audi A4 estate........(!)
I drive in Belgium regularly, the driving standards are the worst in Europe in my book........and I spent four years in the Czech Republic.
I also drive fairly regularly in Italy. The Belgians make the Italians look like nervous mimsers.
Also the only place I have ever taken a taxi where the driver took what he described as a short cut, by going one junction up a motorway in the wrong direction.
Last edited by: TeeCee on Thu 15 Mar 12 at 08:43
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All of which has no relevance whatsoever if we find the driver was taken ill at the wheel.
He too has a family somewhere as does his colleague who was also killed.
I dread to think what it's like for them at the moment, having the finger pointed upon mere speculation.....
Pat
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>> >> And painted dark-ish green as well. The mind boggles, to be honest.
>> >>
>>
>> You could paint it dayglo pink, cover it in flashing lights and put a barrier
>> round it. A Belgian would still find a way to hit it.....
>>
PRATT. Post elsewhere.
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Coverage of the coach damage.
news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16188330
One difference in the recovery process - it was said that the tunnel was reopened in two hours.
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Also the damage to the coach ripped open on one side.Why so much damage to the coach?can't have gone faster than 60mph.How strong are coaches in a crash they always end up on a side where the people are killed.Reports are children not wearing seatbelts.
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A dreadful shame. To echo some posts a while back on this forum, some parents are waking up to this news this morning. I doubt anything could comfort them.
As for coach designs, I always thought they were like cans for soft drinks, absolutely the minimum structural rigidity that they can get away with.
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Very, very upsetting. Why the hell isn't there some kind of deflecting barrier to keep vehicles from slamming into a immovable concrete death trap?
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>> Very, very upsetting. Why the hell isn't there some kind of deflecting barrier to keep
>> vehicles from slamming into a immovable concrete death trap?
+1
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>> Why is the second link clickable, but the first one isn't?
Because the http bit was left off.
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The report says the wall's there to provide emergency access. I presume that if there's a fire in the tunnel it gives a means of escape isolated from any fumes. There doesn't appear to be any sort of barrier to divert a vehicle from hitting the wall.
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>> The report says the wall's there to provide emergency access. I presume that if there's
>> a fire in the tunnel it gives a means of escape isolated from any fumes.
>> There doesn't appear to be any sort of barrier to divert a vehicle from hitting
>> the wall.
>>
How does a concrete wall provide an emergency access - sorry if I'm thick. Is there an door somewhere?
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The walls like that are there as before it there is a refuge / emergency layby. These are cut into most tunnels in Switzerland / Italy etc.. at periodic intervals along the length of the tunnel.
Many of them do have a fireproof door and either a refuge room or some sort of emergency exit
Last edited by: PR on Wed 14 Mar 12 at 11:27
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>>The walls like that are there as before it there is a refuge / emergency layby. These are cut into most tunnels in Switzerland / Italy etc.. at periodic intervals along the length of the tunnel<<
Are they all without crash barriers PR, or just the minority? (I'll check out Google maps layder)
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>>How does a concrete wall provide an emergency access - sorry if I'm thick. Is there an door somewhere?
The picture in this report: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17362643
It clearly shows a door and a green, emergency exit sign above.
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If you want to see in the tunnel, go to google maps, Sierre in Switzerland. There is a motorway tunnel. On street view you can go into the tunnel (though I think its the other side to which this happened), there is a refuge layby with an escape door.
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You should try some of the old Italian tunnels, so dangerous you would swear it was the opening to Hades and you can feel the breath of Cerberus on your neck.
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>> You should try some of the old Italian tunnels, so dangerous you would swear it
>> was the opening to Hades and you can feel the breath of Cerberus on your
>> neck.
>>
No, thats the breath of the Italian high speed tailgaters. :-)
Last edited by: Old Navy on Wed 14 Mar 12 at 12:42
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@Dog IIRC they dont have barriers, particularly infront of the doors. They are intended as escape routes in case of fires, so I assume in low visibility. Im guessing barriers infront of these doors would lead to chaos.
@Zero Quite right. On driving from Switzerland into Italy at Como, you have just gone through pretty well maintained and lit tunnels. Within a feww hundred metres of crossing into Italy there is the most dilapidated, dark, dank tunnel you could care to imagine!
And the drivers in Italy arent as bad as they used to be on the motorways. The average speed camera "Sistem Tutor" being the main reason they have slowed down
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Horrible beyond words.
Everyone involved will be scarred for life.
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>> You should try some of the old Italian tunnels, so dangerous you would swear it
>> was the opening to Hades and you can feel the breath of Cerberus on your
>> neck.
Some of the tunnels on the smaller roads in Madeira frightened me. No lighting, dripping with water and probably got a bend so you can't see the light at t'other end. On more than one occasion I braked to a halt until my eyes adjusted. Thankfully those roads are very quiet.
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>> Why is the second link clickable, but the first one isn't?
It's a quirk of the forum software. If a link is posted at the beginning of a post it won't become clickable, but inserting a space first solves the problem.
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www.google.com
yes it does.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 14 Mar 12 at 16:54
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It looks to me as thought the green-painted wall is at the end of a layby or refuge. For some reason the wall wasn't tapered at a shallow angle to the road, instead being built at 90° to the direction of travel. Were it angled, then at least in a collision the vehicle would have been deflected rather than come to an immediate and catastrophic halt. A coachful of children hitting it end-on really is the worst-case scenario.
It's worth remembering how much road safety improvement work has been done on the UK's roads in the last 10 years, with CCTV installation, Highways Agency patrols and the removal of ramped barriers etc. It would be easy to assume that other countries' motorways (even the Swiss') are designed and managed to an equally high standard, but that's not always the case.
By the by, bloodstains can clearly be seen in one of the DM's photos. Not good at all.
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Wed 14 Mar 12 at 17:11
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Unfortunately no matter how hard you try you'll never get kids to wear seatbelts on coaches. I remember teachers used to patrol the aisle on school trips and they were just held across laps, not actually fastened.
Idiotic - since I was one of them - but unsolvable. You could show 1000 children pictures of this coach and none of them would wear their seatbelts on the way home.
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Not sure seatbelts would have saved the front 10 rows.
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The National Express coach I went on last year had a seatbelt warning light up at the front, which wouldn't go out until all seated passengers were wearing their belts. The coach driver stood at the front end of the gangway before the journey and said he wasn't driving until the light was out.
An adaption with a really loud buzzer* for school coaches should be possible.
*Or an interlock to stop the DVD player or sound system from working every time someone undoes their belt.
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Wed 14 Mar 12 at 17:23
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Impressive turnout by the rescue organisation. BBC reports 8 helicopters were in service to ferry the injured to hospitals
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>> It's a quirk of the forum software. If a link is posted at the beginning
>> of a post it won't become clickable, but inserting a space first solves the problem.
IIRC, that was fixed many moons ago in the old place.
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That tunnel is also quite new, its not an old one that is not up to scratch...
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You can see a similar area to where the crash occurred here: g.co/maps/fnj2v
Common sense tells me the area concerned could have been constructed differently.
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>> You can see a similar area to where the crash occurred here: g.co/maps/fnj2v
>>
>> Common sense tells me the area concerned could have been constructed differently.
Yebbut,
There also needs to be a facility to evacuate to a safe space in an emergency. That needs exit doors to area that's crash proof and ventilated and allow rapid idiot proof exit visible and usable in fire and smoke.
Doing that while making the area safe for every permutation of vehicle impact is a tall order.
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Yes but the refuge does not need to be made with a square wall at 90 degrees to the traffic flow.
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>> the refuge does not need to be made with a square wall at 90 degrees to the traffic flow.
Quite. You would think a sensible deflecting arrangement might have occurred to someone at some point. Perhaps there's been an endless wrangle about who should pay for it - not all that much one would think.
Every now and then on the road you see some evil bit of masonry like that, a bridge pillar or something from an earlier age, and think: I wouldn't want to lose it at speed just here...
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I suggest if that many people got killed in it there are some ways in which it is not up to scratch
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In this particular refuge, the door and the escape route run alongside the tunnel. In others I have seen the door for the escape is on the tunnel sidewall. There must be some reason why this is the case here.
It is overly simplistic to say it is not up to scratch
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OK! There are design characteristics which may have led to a number of deaths and this would appear to be, in some way(s), unsatisfactory.
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An awful, awful tragedy for all involved.
I offer no speculation about this incident but here is the tunnel in happier times.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lQscL7NfTw
Ted
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Seems to be one of those worst case scenarios, like Z said, seat belts are not capable of saving souls with that kind of damage and impact forces. It's certainly the worst coach crash I can think of. A complete nightmare for all involved, spare a thought for the emergency services and fellow motorists, that must be traumatic, even if one is trained for it. V v sad.
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In the paper this morning it indicated that the seatbelt mountings (and seats?) broke free. That may account for the level of death/injury . Ok nothing would save the first 5 rows on the rhs - looks as though it was heavily offset damage. Would seat mountings for the seats towards the rear be expected to remain intact at this impact speed in a modern coach?
This must be as near as a real life crash comes to the NCAP style concrete block crash test.
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have the swiss not heard of tarpaulin? i mean some respect please
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Heard in radio news today morning that children were wearing seatbelts. But with such an impact, it probably did not make any difference.
What a sad incident.
I don't know how coaches are manufactured, but from the photos it seems it suffered a worse damage compared to what would have happened to a car.
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>> I don't know how coaches are manufactured, but from the photos it seems it suffered
>> a worse damage compared to what would have happened to a car.
>>
>>
Heavier, rear engine, more momentum?
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The length, height and general scale of coaches makes it difficult to give them proper monocoque construction with a relatively strong and resistant 'passenger capsule' provided with strong seatbelt anchorage points. Probably the weight and cost penalties would be too great.
My impression is that modern coaches do have a sort of flimsy roll cage, so that they can roll without crushing the passengers (as they tended to do until very recently). But they are still 'coachbuilt' - constructed piecemeal from the chassis up, as coaches and indeed cars used to be. Such vehicles provide little or no crash protection even if they have now improved. In a very sudden stop like the one in this incident, just imagine the inertia of two to four tons of passengers all suddenly flying forward against their belts...
Whoever operates that tunnel needs to think about deflection arrangements for these refuges. Those walls are just too threatening as they are. You wouldn't want to go into one even at 15mph in a car, let alone 40ish in a coach.
There is said to be no indication of excessive speed, but there is a suggestion that the coach was veering about and had clipped the opposite kerb first. That seems to support the idea of a driver ill or unconscious.
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>>Heard in radio news today morning that children were wearing seatbelts. But with such an impact, it probably did not make any difference.
>>
....just imagine the inertia of two to four tons of passengers all suddenly flying forward against their belts.
>>
There was also an indication that the seats were not retained in place.
This has echos of the situation found on aircraft a few years ago .
IIRC there was a revised minimum standard for such seats and how much G they has to survive and not detach from the floor.
Perhaps they will re examine the coach situation.
( There are an awful lot of ancient coaches around, a lot on the school run :-(
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Thinking about this, it seems likely that designers and regulators are aware consciously or unconsciously that coach passengers will usually come off best and car passengers worst in the most likely sort of crash, between a coach and a car or cars. The car may simply be run over and anyway the passengers in the coach are out of harm's way, above the level of the most likely severe damage, with their feet on a level with the car passengers' heads.
However the requirement for economy, comfort and panoramic views for rubbernecking means that coach passengers are vulnerable in the event of collisions with other buses, lorries or immovable objects like that accursed wall. Unless seat belts are anchored to heavy bits of chassis they are useless. Anchoring them to flimsily-attached, deformable seats is pointless.
Primary safety - braking, acceleration, roadholding etc. - has improved out of all recognition for buses as well as other vehicles in the last few decades. What is being discussed here is secondary or 'passive' safety, safety for when the driver has screwed up definitively, all that airbag and seatbelt carp we hated so much when it was first imposed on us.
A safe coach from that point of view would be small, low and long-snouted, with small windows too. No one would want to go in it.
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from the DT
The driver of the coach which crashed into a tunnel wall killing 22 children and six adults was trying to put a DVD film on seconds before impact, it has been claimed.
Young survivors of the horrific accident told their parents that he was seen trying to insert the disc as they drove along the A9 motorway in Switzerland.
The fear is that the driver, who died in the crash, was distracted and lost control.
Renato Kalbermatten, spokesman for the Swiss police, confirmed that the theory was being examined, although CCTV footage “did not make the situation very clear”.
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This is a coach crash test.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFlGHxV5WsY
Unlike cars, coaches have no crumple zone!
In future if I am in a coach and have choice of seating, I'll try my best to sit after the middle row at least for best chance of survival in case of similar crash.
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And again!
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2136904/Tokyo-Disneyland-coach-bus-crash-kills-seven.html
From the picture it looks like the coach was made of cardboards. I think a car would have been safer in this scenario.
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Another Coach Crash. - Dog
