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Bus crash in Hunter Valley :(


Not Escapin Xmas

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nom_de_plume

It's devastated the local sport community here in my area of Melbourne. We are members of a rival club and the bride and groom and many of the wedding guests are well known throughout the association/league and wider community. Desperately hoping the injured make a full recovery.

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Two victims have been identified, a couple with two kids. Poor kids, losing both mum and dad. Horrible beyond words 

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Julie3Girls

They have named most of the victims, including pictures, (appear to be their Facebook photos).  Think they had name and photos for seven of them.

And reports are coming out that the driver was speeding. 

Edited by Julie3Girls
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Quite a few of my close family members took a bus from a wedding venue in regional Victoria back to their accommodation just 3 weeks ago. I have asked the question, one that for very real reasons is important to me and none of them wore their seatbelts. I am shocked and really disappointed in them and they can just deal with my angst, they should have known better.

We are all human, we take risks because we feel safe and we trust so there has to be a way that we can know that with 100% surety that risks are being mitigated by those who we are trusting to keep us safe.

Without preempting the circumstances (which is difficult since the driver has been charged) there has to be a major overhaul of the industry which relies on normal people trusting those who are employed by them to keep them safe. 

The media will move on soon to the next tragedy as they always do with little understanding of the fact that the fight is just beginning for all the victims.

 

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, Rockwiz said:

And allegedly boasting about it.

Any sympathy I might have had for the driver is gone after reading that. 

(Usually if a driver survives a fatal crash, I have some sympathy that they have to live with the consequences of their actions forever. But in this case it sounds like he was wilfully negligent and it was beyond being an accident.)

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10 minutes ago, Rockwiz said:

And allegedly boasting about it.

What? Where?

I have little sympathy who bus drivers who speed in ANY conditions as this usually leads to them braking hard 

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9 minutes ago, LunaFreya said:

What? Where?

I have little sympathy who bus drivers who speed in ANY conditions as this usually leads to them braking hard 

https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/news/hunter-valley-bus-drivers-alleged-boast-before-crash-that-claimed-10-lives/news-story/fbb358c2722110388cfb2e51fb60b93f

Obviously this is just an anonymous allegation at this point and has not been established as truth, but it is still very shocking to read.  

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Chocolate Addict

I have never understood with the media, the need to go to venues the victims are associated with.

Last night on ch  7 they had someone outside the hospital, someone else outside one of the sporting clubs etc.. - Why??

To garner more sympathy? We are already shocked and saddened. Hoping to talk to someone about it? That is just cruel and inappropriate.

Yes, we want to know how many died, how many are in hospital etc but we don't need to know all their personal details.

I said back when I first commented that usually single vehicle accidents are driver error, so I didn't even consider how that guy was feeling, and he was also talking to police by the time I had even heard about it. Though I am curious to know who he was bragging to about speeding.

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2 hours ago, STBG 2 said:

Quite a few of my close family members took a bus from a wedding venue in regional Victoria back to their accommodation just 3 weeks ago. I have asked the question, one that for very real reasons is important to me and none of them wore their seatbelts. I am shocked and really disappointed in them and they can just deal with my angst, they should have known better.

We are all human, we take risks because we feel safe and we trust so there has to be a way that we can know that with 100% surety that risks are being mitigated by those who we are trusting to keep us safe.

Without preempting the circumstances (which is difficult since the driver has been charged) there has to be a major overhaul of the industry which relies on normal people trusting those who are employed by them to keep them safe. 

The media will move on soon to the next tragedy as they always do with little understanding of the fact that the fight is just beginning for all the victims.

 

 

 

 

I have also taken a bus back to accommodation after several weddings and been surprised at the number of people not wearing seatbelts. One factor I think is that many of the guests on the buses chose that option so they could drink - and in some cases drink quite a lot. Unfortunately I think risk taking behaviour increases when people have been drinking. 

Like you, I am not speculating on anything with this accident though as there is an ongoing investigation and I expect that will take quite some time. Completely agree there needs to be an overhaul of the industry. 

Edited by zeldazonk
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4 minutes ago, Chocolate Addict said:

I have never understood with the media, the need to go to venues the victims are associated with.

Last night on ch  7 they had someone outside the hospital, someone else outside one of the sporting clubs etc.. - Why??

To garner more sympathy? We are already shocked and saddened. Hoping to talk to someone about it? That is just cruel and inappropriate.

Yes, we want to know how many died, how many are in hospital etc but we don't need to know all their personal details.

I said back when I first commented that usually single vehicle accidents are driver error, so I didn't even consider how that guy was feeling, and he was also talking to police by the time I had even heard about it. Though I am curious to know who he was bragging to about speeding.

ABC had someone at the side of the road where the crash had taken place…like 18 hours after. What was the point?

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14 minutes ago, LunaFreya said:

What? Where?

I have little sympathy who bus drivers who speed in ANY conditions as this usually leads to them braking hard 

It’s all over the news.com.au website. Survivors from the crash are allegedly saying the driver was making comments such as ‘fasten your seatbelts’ and ‘you want to see fast…this is fast’. Again alleged. Who knows with the media.

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5 minutes ago, Chocolate Addict said:

I have never understood with the media, the need to go to venues the victims are associated with.

Last night on ch  7 they had someone outside the hospital, someone else outside one of the sporting clubs etc.. - Why??

To garner more sympathy? We are already shocked and saddened. Hoping to talk to someone about it? That is just cruel and inappropriate.

Yes, we want to know how many died, how many are in hospital etc but we don't need to know all their personal details.

I said back when I first commented that usually single vehicle accidents are driver error, so I didn't even consider how that guy was feeling, and he was also talking to police by the time I had even heard about it. Though I am curious to know who he was bragging to about speeding.

I think it is just a sad indictment of the times we live in and the need to create 24 hours news "content". 

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Chocolate Addict
36 minutes ago, zeldazonk said:

I think it is just a sad indictment of the times we live in and the need to create 24 hours news "content". 

And that is why I listen to the news on the radio rather than watch the TV news. I just happened to not change the station before it started last night. :(

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51 minutes ago, zeldazonk said:

I think it is just a sad indictment of the times we live in and the need to create 24 hours news "content". 

I think it's more that TV has to have pictures so that someone has to be by the side of the road somewhere even if there is not anything to be seen.

Re seatbelts, I flipped my car at speed but I got out with the only injuries being from the seatbelt holding me, just some ripped skin and arms sore from absorbing the impact.  

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Kiwi Bicycle
40 minutes ago, Lesley225 said:

I think it's more that TV has to have pictures so that someone has to be by the side of the road somewhere even if there is not anything to be seen.

 

Yes, they need a visual. So in my case with the incident with the neighbour, I had the TV helicopter hovering for 30 minutes over my house and a camera crew in the street on the other side. My DH had to park the car down the street and show his driver license to the Police to get to our house.

TV news would be pretty boring if it was just the announcer sitting there talking. You may as well just have a radio on instead.

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Seayork2002

I presume there is a police media liaison officer that may advise on some of it, like if a child is missing (no I am not actually comparing the two events)

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The Age is referring to "unaccounted for guests". Do they just mean "not officially co firmed dead". Looks like they've scraped Facebook and LinkedIn for pics

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Not Escapin Xmas
4 minutes ago, Greenbean said:

The Age is referring to "unaccounted for guests". Do they just mean "not officially co firmed dead". Looks like they've scraped Facebook and LinkedIn for pics

Yes, that’s exactly what they mean :(

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Chocolate Addict

Yeah, not everyone has been identified yet. :(

Maybe there needs to be new rules that any buses with seat belts, the driver is responsible for everyone having their seat belt on, like car drivers. If someone doesn't have the belt on, the driver gets a fine so maybe buses need to be included in this rule?

Just a thought, I am sure there is many reasons why it wouldn't be feasible.

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3 hours ago, Chocolate Addict said:

 

I have never understood with the media, the need to go to venues the victims are associated with.

Last night on ch  7 they had someone outside the hospital, someone else outside one of the sporting clubs etc.. - Why??

 

Yep. Was discussing this with my dad. My families careers are television. But dad is still horrified by current behaviour. 
 

what I don’t get is why he continues to watch 7!!! (Granted he worked there for 30 years so hard habit to break…) 

he asked if 10 was as bad as 7 today. (My sister ex employer) and I said no. 

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1 minute ago, Chocolate Addict said:

Yeah, not everyone has been identified yet. :(

Maybe there needs to be new rules that any buses with seat belts, the driver is responsible for everyone having their seat belt on, like car drivers. If someone doesn't have the belt on, the driver gets a fine so maybe buses need to be included in this rule?

Just a thought, I am sure there is many reasons why it wouldn't be feasible.

The feasibility would be really hard unless the driver got an error message.

I think it’s needs to start with is every coach having seats belts. Is it even a legal requirement! I genuinely don’t know. I can’t remember the last time I caught a coach. 

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Julie3Girls
Just now, Chocolate Addict said:

Yeah, not everyone has been identified yet. :(

Maybe there needs to be new rules that any buses with seat belts, the driver is responsible for everyone having their seat belt on, like car drivers. If someone doesn't have the belt on, the driver gets a fine so maybe buses need to be included in this rule?

Just a thought, I am sure there is many reasons why it wouldn't be feasible.

I could agree with a bus driver telling everyone they need to wear seatbelts, issuing a reminder before the bus leaves.  Standard buses are still pretty much no seatbelts, people are used to the idea that they don’t wear a seatbelt on a bus, it’s even expected that buses will have people standing.  So yes, reminders to passengers on a coach that seatbelts are available and are to be used, could be good thing.

But really, how is the bus driver meant to monitor and enforce seatbelt wearing, while still maintaining his attention on actually driving the bus?  There needs to be an element of personal responsibility, a bus full of adults who should know to wear seatbelts.

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