Bouquets for coaches
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COACH operators and drivers are strongly praised by two highly respected international bodies in a report just published.
And the organisations make this joint appeal: drive like professional coach drivers.
The appeal was launched, in Geneva, by the International Road Transport Union (IRU) and the International Touring Alliance (AIT) in a document entitled "Travel by road — is the motor coach a solution?"
Britain is said to boast the largest number of coach-carried tourists; in 1974, our coaches carried 223 million tourists against 85 million in West Germany.
The IRU lists "13 good reasons" why tourists and the general public should increase their coach travel habits. One of the main reasons given is that coaches "consume and pollute less" and people who travel on them will "render a service to the community" because coaches, in proportion, create less fumes and use less fuel than cars.
Safer travel
Coach travel means less likelihood of being an accident victim than any other transport mode, the IRU says. The design, engineer and annual vehicle checks, together with the thorough professional training of drivers, are the most important elements like ly to prompt tourists to choose this form of travel, it adds.
And the AIT and IRU report continues: "Only coaches can provide such unfettered combinations as wine tasting and sightseeing which the private car should certainly not encourage".
The IRU and its members, the National Road Transport Associations, "are untiringly pursuing action to free motc coach operators from all us( less constraints and admini! trative formalities, especiall in international traffic". th report concludes.