Wherever in the world, we visit on our travels, it’s almost inevitable that at some point during an excursion, we are going to end up being a passenger. For some holidaymakers, the flights to and from a destination may be the only form of passenger travel that they will experience the whole time they are away, as they jump into their waiting hire car at the airport.
Conversely, other travellers may have planned their whole trip based on taking passenger transport only. A mixture of train, plane, car, boat, rail, bus and coach travel will ‘take the strain’, for the duration of their holidays.
Travelling as a passenger allows us to take in our new surroundings and to see places that we may never set eyes on again and probably not have done this time, had we been busy keeping our eyes on the road ahead in our fly-drive hire vehicle.
However, every time we allow ourselves to be transported as a passenger, there is an element of giving up some control over our destiny to someone else: someone that we have never met and in whom we are asked to place our trust and to take care of our wellbeing.
If that person is the captain of a cruise ship or the pilot of a passenger plane, most of us are content in the knowledge that we are putting ourselves in the care of experienced and highly skilled professionals. In most instances, our trust will be completely justified.
When it comes down to the more basic means of public transport, should we so willingly base our trust on the briefest of acquaintances and a winning smile? For example, how many of us have walked out of an airport in Bangkok, Hanoi or Phnom Penh and decided to take a trip downtown in a Tuk Tuk, a type of transport that many locals wouldn’t be seen dead using if you’ll forgive the pun.
Nevertheless, passengers are at risk of getting injured in accidents whilst using any form of passenger transport. It’s just that the risk is much lower with some than it is with others. A common denominator amongst all passenger accidents is that they are almost invariably never the fault of the passenger themselves.
Is there any way that you can mitigate against your chances of being injured whilst travelling as a passenger?
As a passenger, there’s nothing we can do to prevent driver, rider or pilot error. Neither can we do anything to prevent other vehicles or obstacles coming into collision with us. However, there are precautions that we can take to minimise the possibilities of us getting harmed whilst we are a passenger, whatever the mode of transport we are using.
1. Aeroplanes
Air travel is, despite many peoples fear of flying, the safest mode of transport, according to studies carried out in the US with just 0.07 deaths per one billion passenger miles flown. That’s genuinely comforting.
All the same, aircraft passengers do suffer injuries. Here are some ways of minimising the risk of getting hurt, whilst onboard an aircraft:
- Listen to the pre-flight safety briefing – it sounds obvious to say, but how many passengers actually do?
- Play your part in not overloading overhead storage lockers otherwise you might be the unfortunate one who is hit by falling luggage.
- Keep your seat belt fastened whilst flying to avoid getting injured as a result of air turbulence.
- Take care with hot drinks. Best let the flight attendant pour them and place the cup on your tray.
- Keep your alcohol consumption down to moderate levels. Altitude magnifies the effects of alcohol. You don’t want to have a tripping accident as you stumble your way down the aisle on your way to the toilet.
2. Ships
Although cruise ship accidents happen, they are incredibly uncommon. Incidents involving cruise ships have declined year on year since 2009. Like aeroplanes, cruise ship safety is highly regulated.
Falling overboard on modern cruise ships isn’t an easy thing to do either. Strict rules surround the heights of railings and balcony heights. Structural barriers are also in place.
Any accidents that take place on ships are likely to be:
- slip and trip accidents caused by wet and slippery floors,
- falling over luggage left in hallways,
- accidents in or around the swimming pool
- falling down stairways
As cruise and ferry ships are mini-communities of people, the precautions required whilst on board are of the same type you would expect to exercise whilst in a shopping mall or the street, whilst on dry land!
3. Taxis
So much has been written and said about taxis and personal safety. Quite rightly, many column inches provide specific advice to women travellers about their personal safety when choosing a taxi, particularly when they intend to travel alone.
This article focuses on trying to stay safe in your chosen taxi, so as not to suffer a personal injury as a result of a road accident.
In many cases, your best method of trying to avoid being in a taxi accident may be ensuring that you use a reputable taxi company. Ironically for a solo female traveller, trying to ensure her own, personal safety, we’d probably advise much the same means of choosing a cab.
However reputable and decent a driver your cabbie might be, you can’t legislate for driver error – either that of your driver or of another vehicle. In such cases, all you can do is look to minimise your risk by:
- Sitting in the back of the cab
- Making sure the seatbelt works and that you wear it – the single most effective way of avoiding or minimising injury to yourself, should the taxi be involved in a collision whilst you are in it.
- Not distracting the driver
- Making sure that your door is closed correctly
4. Bus Travel
Quite often we will be more likely to use buses whilst on holiday, than when we are at home. It would be wrong to say that travelling by bus is anything but a generally safe form of transport in most countries. Bus passengers are more likely to be injured by a slip, trip and fall accident whilst they try to get on or off the bus, or whilst navigating their way down the aisle than they are as a result of the bus colliding with another vehicle.
Top tips for an accident-free bus trip include:
- Try to get to your bus stop or depot in good time to catch it. Accidents happen when people are rushing to jump on a bus that is in the process of departing
- When you’ve got on the bus, do your best to get a seat.
- If you can’t, then try and find a rail or handle to hold. It’s easy to be sent sprawling by sudden movement as the vehicle sets off, slows down, accelerates or suddenly brakes.
- Hold tight. Don’t get immersed in your phone whilst you are standing up. You are in danger of being caught off guard should the vehicle be driven erratically.
- Take care to try and only manoeuvre to the exit of the bus once the driver has brought it to a halt.
5. Coach Travel
The same types of consideration apply to travel by coach as they do on a bus. There tends to be less movement of passengers on coach journeys because of the difference in the use of the two forms of transport. Coaches are generally used to take a group of people to one set destination, as opposed to buses, where passengers are continually hopping on and off.
As such, the incidents of tripping and falling accidents are less likely to occur on coaches.
Coach passengers in the UK are legally required to wear seat belts and they can be issued with a fixed penalty notice for failing to do so. As the seat belt is your means of preventing or reducing any injuries you might sustain in the event of a coach accident, that alone should act as an incentive for wearing it! It’s also a pretty sound doctrine to apply when travelling on a coach anywhere in the world.
6. Rail Travel
Train crashes are fortunately pretty rare occurrences anywhere in the world. You’d be very unlucky to be injured as a result of a train accident. Other than hanging too far out of windows or the types of open doors that prevail on some trains in other parts of the world, you’d be hard pushed to emerge from a train journey with a passenger injury.
It’s probably worth remembering that walking around the train too much, could end up with you suffering a nasty fall should the train brake more sharply than expected.
7. Tuk Tuk
We started this article by talking about Tuk Tuks, so a brief word about them to finish off this article. You know you shouldn’t – dangerous, often uninsured, with low skilled drivers – but you probably will. All we can say is;
“forewarned, is forearmed”
It’s worth noting that very few passenger accidents are the fault of the passenger. If you suffer injury in a passenger accident which occurs in England or Wales (who share the same legal system) it may be worth looking into making a claim for compensation by contacting a passenger accident injury solicitor who will usually take your claim on a no win no fee basis.
*Collaborative Post
