Thank you for posting a comment linking us to this website on our local paper thread about an incident that happened on 11 & 16 year old daughters' school bus on Monday. The double-decker bus slid off the road in the snow. Nothing major as it transpired, but potentially lethal as the country lane the bus was trying to negotiate has ditches on either side and the passengers thought that they were going into one. The road was completely untreated, completely white, icey, with big ridges of snow in sections. The bus had been cancelled due to the snow the previous days, but as service had been resumed I assumed that the roads had been checked to be suitable. The bus company have told me that "In the circumstances, I cannot accept your view that we put the safety of the children at risk. As I have said the incident was actually very minor, the driver is a professional, and it is not practical to 'check the condition' of every road before running a service along it as you suggest."

Reading this site it brings home how lucky we are that our children are so safe, and I am truly sorry for the poor parents who weren't so lucky.

Carla's story has reminded me to enjoy every second with our precious children. Thank you for being so proactive and helping others.

My Grandson who is still 4 years at the moment is at Bridge of Weir Primary school in Renfrewshire he has been getting the bus to and from school and everything has been fine up until today.

He gets a mini bus number 3 and has had the same driver until today, the buses line up in order and he gets on the 3rd bus but today there was a different driver to take him home the buses were lined up 1 3 2, he was confused and walked home alone for 2 miles.

We have an investigation going on with the council and the school as to why he was alLowed to walk off alone and he had to cross busy roads, his mum Charlene my daughter was distraught when she met the bus and he wasnt on it.

Thankfully she met him as she was on her way to the school there are so many things that could have happened, but is anyone going to hold their hands up and take ownership of this problem ,i doubt it

Ms Oldham,

I know it is sometime since you emailed me about your campaigns. I am a father myself with two sons not a lot younger than your daughter was when her fate so tragically took her from you.
My sympathies are with you, and I know that no words anyone can offer will ever heal your pain, nor time ever numb it.

I have forwarded your email to EVERY driving instructor in my area (West Lothian and Edinburgh), as well as to the entire council of DISC (the Driving Instructors Scottish Council) which is the MAJOR body representing Driving Instructors in Scotland.

We also have very healthy links with the major bodies in England and Wales.

I am sure all of us will appreciate your position and I have asked for suggestions to see if there is anything we can do to publicise your campaign.
If I get any word back we will be in touch. If there are updates to your campaigns.
PLEASE let us know.

May your God walk with you in dark times.

Dear Sir / Madam

I would like to first of all express my condolences to the appropriate families mentioned on your website and lend my support to your organisation.

I am a driver trainer based in Edinburgh and will take your message onboard and pass it on to as many people as i possibly can.
Hopefully we can all make a difference and make people especially drivers more aware of the school bus signs and what they mean.

I feel an ideal situation would be to try to get all the bus companies to pull together for a national advert promoting the school bus use and dangers the same as the government did for ice cream vans many years ago.

I am in the process of building a website just now and will put a link to your website on there with your permission.


William Millar
DSA Approved Driving Instructor

I have deleted the mail from Murray Cowie.

The reason being it has also brought all the sad, angry & sick folk out of the woodwork.

Any mail that starts along similar lines will not be read, but consigned to the spam bin, so you will get no satisfaction there either!

We are doing just fine; we have a huge interest in all that we are doing from those in authority & many parents & grand parents.

Our website is well read all over the UK & other countries.

We do realise that a minority will however criticise all we do, as they will everything else in life that does not suit them.

They do so for reasons, best known to them.

We have no reason to apologise to anyone for what we do, nor how we do it.
Ron