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Coach safety supplementary brakes by law?
Page 90
Page 91
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FUTURE INTERNATIONAL TRENDS AND POSSIBILITIES REVEALED BY ECE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN INTERVIEWED BY DAVID SPAIN
I SUSPECT that the majority of the British travelling public accept the high safety standards of the public service vehicle without much thought—until a mishap causes those same members of the public to demand "why and how?" The very fact that there are so few serious accidents per bus or coach mile makes those few incidents newsworthy. Operators should not condemn this practice, as they sometimes do; without the continual alertness and awareness of the travelling public and it is for them tha1 the service is provided) enforcement of standards could soon become lax.
Following a series of Continental coach accidents a few years ago, when British tourists were killed or injured, the Minister of Transport made representations in Europe which resulted in the setting up of an international group concerned with safety in buses and coaches. To find out exactly how the group is progressing and what, if any, recommendations it has made, I recently talked to its chairman, Mr. Hubert Perring, chief mechanical engineer of the mechanical engineering division at the Ministry of Transport.
Mr. Perring explained that this group works directly under a working party (known as WP29), which concentrates on ensuring that the various national codes of regulations governing the construction of vehicles are compatible one with another. Outlining the family tree, he explained that above the working party is a road transport sub-committee and above that sub-committee, the transport committee of the Economic Commission for Europe, with headquarters in Geneva. The transport committee deals with all aspects of transport but primarily with its economics.
I asked Mr. Perring what the procedure is when his group makes a recommendation. He said that a report is made to WP29, which considers any recommendation made. If the recommendation is lengthy it is prepared as a separate document and annexed to the report. This makes it easier, and quicker, for the discussions in WP29.
There are usually about 15 members on Mr. Perring's group, including representatives from other European countries, the International Union of Public Transport (UITP) and the BPICA (a form of international SMMT). The group has so far had two meetings, with another planned for early next year. The meetings have been in London, and not, as I had assumed, in Geneva.
I asked Mr. Perring to explain in more detail the accidents which have caused the setting up of the group. He said that in the one particular year referred to there were 26 coach accidents on the Continent, involving only, so far as he could remember, Continental operators, although he thought this was purely incidental. The first assumption had been that there was a mechanical or construction fault with the coaches but this had not proved to be so. In only a very few cases had the coach itself played any significant part. In some cases driving errors led to the accident—in one instance the driver had descended an Alpine road using the brake continuously until brake fade had developed and the inevitable loss of control had occurred.
Although the group has been given a fairly free hand in deciding what aspects of safety to consider, it has been found that the safety regulations of most countries are not a "field shrieking out for lots of panic action", as he put it. The group's aim is really to find cases in which the existing set-up can be improved.
Fire risks
One of the recommendations made was that coaches or buses used in hilly or mountainous districts should be equipped with some form of retarder or exhaust brake which should be sufficient to permit them to descend an average gradient without noticeably warming up the main brakes. Mr. Perring agreed a coach that descended a long gradient with a retarder full on and was forced to stop at the bottom, perhaps because of traffic congestion, could be a fire risk because of the intense heat built up by the retarder.
This led, he explained, to another recommendation that there should be a fire wall, equivalent to at least a sheet of steel, between the retarder and the vehicle on the same lines as the recommendation about the • engine compartment. He pointed out that this is not a very specific recommendation but it is felt that a steel panel, of almost any thickness, delays the spread of fire through the vehicle sufficiently to enable the passengers to reach safety. He felt the fact that the coach might go up in flames afterwards is to be deplored, but said that it is not the same order of risk, being more in the nature of a financial loss on the operator.
It was originally thought that different degrees of fire risk might exist in respect of the engine's position, added Mr. Perring, but as far as the group could find out this is not the case. Another fire prevention recommendation was that the engine compartment ought not to have any sound-deadening material which could absorb oil. He noted that this is already one of this country's requirements. There should not be any receptables formed in the structure of the engine compartment, because pools of oil could accumulate.
In answer to my question regarding the authority, if any, that the group's recommendations carried, Mr. Perring said the group's fire prevention and retarder recommendations would be included in a series of recommendations issued by the Economic Commission for Europe, by which member governments generally abide. The ECE had no supra-national powers and at its best could only try and persuade countries to come into line.
Seat belts
Because of a recent announcement that America is pressing for the compulsory introduction of seat belts for p.s.v, drivers, and in certain circumstances the passengers as well, I asked Mr. Perring for his opinion. He is not very keen on the proposals because a completely different state of affairs exists where p.s.v. are involved from those apparent in light vehicles. For example, in the car it is the driver or front seat passenger colliding with the interior of the car, after it first collides with a stationary object, who is so often killed or injured. This "second collision" could be avoided by wearing seat belts.
In p.s.v.'s most passengers are to some extent protected by the seats in front of them and he thought it a better proposition to have seats with head rests and to position them in such a way that passengers could collide with the back of the seat in front and be arrested without any serious damage.
Another aspect, in Mr. Perring's view, is that the introduction of seat belts for passengers must logically involve a ban on standees. You could not secure the seated passengers and leave "loose standing passengers around the place". But the abolition of standees is definitely not under consideration, and the standees' vulnerability is one of the risks accepted quite willingly by the public in modern life. I suggested that if the wearing of seat belts were made compulsory for drivers they would be more likely to retain control of their vehicle following a "jarring" accident. Mr. Perring agreed that this could be a valid point.
Another subject which has been given some consideration is the "waistline structure" of the modern p.s.v. There have, he said, been a few serious accidents where vehicles have rolled over with a resultant collapsing of the roof, supporting pillars and windows. Unfortunately there is not at present sufficient statistical evidence to prove that the deaths or injuries of persons involved in these accidents have been caused directly by the vehicle construction, but he thought a bus or coach that could not stand gently on its roof without collapsing is not at all satisfactory. On the other hand one would not wish to revert to making it like a "wretched tank".
Mr. Perring agreed that the large modern window is popular with travellers but thought that even elementary calculations would prove the slender pillars unable to take the vehicle weight should it roll over. At present there are a number of designs in use by operators which have been seen to stand on their roof without collapsing and he felt it reasonable to demand that one keeps to strengths which are already attainable.
I asked Mr. Perring what was foremost in his mind at present, and whether he felt the working party was going to bring about any decisive results. He said he does not expect the group to produce very much more, mainly because the p.s.v. had been so well regulated and received a lot of attention in the past. A matter with which they were at present engaged is the drawing up of a uniform set of fitness regulations which would affect international vehicle trading more than internatioal operation. The difficulty lay not in arriving at a universal document governing vehicle fitness but in getting member countries to move from their "entrenched positions" and abide by it. And he is not too sanguine of success.