Campaign to change law in memory of 7-year-old boy who lost his life in 2015 bus crash

A government meeting is to take place amid efforts to change the law when it comes to the number of hours bus drivers can legally work, in memory of a young boy who lost his life in 2015.

MP for Warwick and Leamington, Matt Western, is campaigning for Rowan’s Law which seeks to limit the legal working hours of bus drivers, as well as forcing operating firms to publish its accident data.

Rowan Fitzgerald

The campaign is named after Rowan Fitzgerald, who died at the age of seven when the bus he was travelling on with family members crashed into a Sainsbury’s supermarket in Coventry city in 2015. Pedestrian Dora Hancox was also killed in the collision – the 76-yer-old was walking down the street when the bus careered off course.

In 2018, bus driver Kailash Chander was charged with two counts of causing death by dangerous driving, along with two charges of causing serious injury by dangerous driving. However, he was found unfit to stand trial due to medical reasons. It later was revealed that Mr Chander, who was 77 at the time of the crash, had worked an average of 75 hours a week in the three weeks leading up to the collision.

Mr Chandler’s employer, national bus operating firm Stagecoach, was fined a total of £2.335million for failings, which were a “significant cause of the accident” according to a judge.

Meeting to discuss proposals

The upcoming meeting follows a recent transport debate in which Mr Western pushed for the Department of Transport to bring forward plans for bus accident data to be collected by bus operators and consequently published by local authorities. He pointed to the fact that this data is already collected by bus companies in London, but not the rest of the UK and asked to meet with a transport minister, along with Rowan’s family, to discuss the Rowan’s Law proposals.

Kelly Tolhurst, parliamentary under-secretary, responded to say that collection of such data could indeed be considered within the wider national bus strategy and agreed to meet with Mr Western and Rowan’s family to discuss the proposals further.

“We cannot afford for any more preventable fatal incidents to happen”

Speaking after the debate, Mr Western said: “Bus accident data is crucial for policymakers, bus drivers and the general public alike to understand how safe bus travel truly is.

"It is simply astonishing that nation-wide data is not published, which means we are not able to see the full picture of bus accidents and the causes. I raised it in Parliament to urge the Government to publish this data, so we can understand the extent to which how unsafe bus travel is.

“I hope the data will put more pressure on the Government to show that implementing Rowan’s Law is necessary to save lives by limiting bus drivers’ working hours to reduce fatigue and therefore reduce accidents. We cannot afford for any more preventable fatal incidents to happen.

“I look forward to meeting with the Government and hope they take this initial step to provide the public with crucial safety information, as well as to finally implement Rowan’s Law.”

Mark Robinson, a solicitor within the Personal Injury team here at Potter Rees Dolan, coments:

It is astonishing that the nationwide data regarding bus accidents and their causes is not made available to the public, but it is pleasing to see that the Government are taking those initial steps to correct this. The Government are also considering restricting bus drivers’ working hours, which is also welcomed as this would help to prevent tragic accidents such as Rowan’s.

Mark is a solicitor within our expert Personal Injury team. If you would like to speak with Mark or any of our solicitors regarding this article or making a Personal Injury claim, please call 0800 027 2557 or fill out a contact form on the side of this page. Alternatively, you can contact Mark directly, here.