Close to Home: English Martyrs Bus Crash
Last Wednesday afternoon, at about 4pm, I heard from a personal source that there had been a serious bus crash outside English Martyrs school in Hartlepool; that children who had been waiting outside the school had been hit by a bus and sent flying and that some of them were still stuck under the bus.
My first reaction was one of panic: my niece attends that school and I was worried for her safety. She’s a cheeky bugger at times, but I’m fond of her nonetheless. However, when I was reminded that she was in fact away on a school trip at the time, I felt somewhat relieved.
…and then guilty for feeling relieved. Just because I don’t know the children in question, doesn’t mean that they are any less important: they are still someone’s son or daughter.
Of course, that’s just what I think. Judging from the national news coverage that I’ve seen of the incident (nil), no-one outside the North East is likely to be aware that there had been a serious bus crash, that children had been dragged under the bus, that according to eyewitness accounts, and that 22 people had been injured.
At the most, if the national media were covering the story, it was a minor item. Why?
Because it wasn’t in the South-East. Two teenage girls from London get arrested in Ghana, it’s national news. Twenty-two people (twenty-one of them children) are injured in an horrific bus crash in Hartlepool and it seems that no-one knows or frankly cares.
Well national media, London, fuck you. If we matter so little to you, don’t expect us to give a toss when you end up below sea level.
Now I don’t know precisely what happened: I guess there will be some form of formal investigation, but one of the pupils is quoted on the Beeb giving a potential explanation:
There were a lot of groups of children going home when one boy ran out into the road in front of the bus
It swerved to try and avoid him and as a result it left the road and ploughed into the fence, hitting some of the kids in the street.
English Martyrs Pupil, quoted on BBC News
Just for a moment, we’ll assume that’s the full story. It may not be, which is why the police are going to have to establish what happened, but just assume it was for the moment…
Imagine that you were the driver. A child runs out in front of you. Instinctively, you just react, to try and pull the bus away from the child. Unfortunately, you then lose control of the bus and plough into the other children. How are you going to feel? Would it have been better if you hadn’t swerved? How would people have reacted to you if you’d just driven straight into that first child?
That’s an awful, awful, no-win situation. I hope that if that, or something like it, turns out to have been the course of the accident, that people understand that the driver is every bit as much of a victim as the children — perhaps more so, psychologically.
Or what if you were the child that ran in the road? You’ve been very stupid, and also very unlucky. Unlucky there was something coming at that moment; unlucky that that something coming — whilst being able to avoid them — was unable to do so without swerving into a large group of other children.
I’d not like to be carrying that burden around, and I’d hope that — again, assuming that this was the cause of the accident — that everyone will be understanding. This may have been something stupid which led to a serious accident, but it wasn’t deliberate or malicious.
The whole thing — at least on this working assumption — was a horiffic accident.
More importantly though, two children are still very seriously ill in hospital. My thoughts are with them and with their families at this time. I’d also like to pay credit to the Great North Air Ambulance Service who were invaluable in getting the seriously injured to hospital quickly.
I wish there was something I could do to help; ranting about how the national media didn’t give the story the importance it deserved doesn’t really seem enough. On the other hand, I can’t imagine how a web-designer/blogger is exactly likely to be able to provide assistance: but if you think I can, contact me.
Hello. I am 
I remember hearing about the same coverage on both of these cases initially. But then I think Radio 4 are probably more aware than most about the London bias tendency.
Admittedly there was more follow up on the Ghana story later, but then I think if that would be the case wherever the girls came from. Once you have government involvement on an international level it has a certain newsworthiness. Obviously, I don’t know if there are other similar cases that haven’t been reported as well - but I don’t think the two stories were as that similar.
I’m sure that there are traffic incidents involving children in London every day, but they only tend to make the local news if that.
The child gang and shootings certainly seems to have a London focus in the national media, but then I remember the shootings a couple of Christmases ago in Manchester too - they seemed to get far more coverage than the recent spate. Perhaps it’s become an old topic.
Sorry, I’m just rambling here I don’t have a real point pro or agin yours. It will be interesting to see whether BBC coverage changes at all when various parts of it are moved up to Manchester.
I have to agree with you : this is a horrible, horrible accident. It’s a no win for anyone, and I don’t know if anyone would know how to react. I feel so sorry for all the people involved : the poor bus driver who was only doing the right thing… the kid who ran across the world who was being stupid, but also just being a kid. And the poor kids who got driven into by the bus, the poor parents of those kids. It’s a no win for anyone, and chances are the bus driver will be the one who will take the lashes for it, even though he reacted just as any normal person would.
Nevermind the lashes he will receive, but this incident will plague on his mind for the rest of his life and he probably won’t ever be the same man again. Without offending someone, I have to admit that the only thing that I think will help here is prayer.
I saw it on the ten o’clock news, looked awful and left me wondering what happened (the report didn’t answer that).
sorry to hear this, feel free to rant ;]
Ah well, it wasn’t on the news bulletins I saw. If it was featured on the national news, then I take back some of what I said about the media…