Coach crash

My first ever foray abroad was a school trip in April 2001. We visited Luxembourg, Paris, nearby Disneyland, Nurnberg and Prague, all within 6 days. We went there by coach. To save on accommodations, we spent 3 out of 6 nights in the coach.

In 2005, I travelled by coach on my own to my friend's family in western Germany. The very journey lasted 19 hours (one way), but the return ticket set me back mere PLN 287. Such was the way most people travelled to western Europe in early post-EU-accession times. Poles were taking 30-hou- long trips to Victoria station in London, sometime before the advent of low-cost airlines.

Now let's look at most tragic bus crashes in the twenty-first century:
1 July 2002, Hungary, coach carrying pilgrims, 19 fatalities, 32 injured,
22 July 2007, France, coach carrying pilgrims, 26 fatalities, 24 injured,
26 September 2010, Germany, coach on a regular route, 14 fatalities, 47 injured,
19 July 2014, Germany, trip coach, 11 fatalities, 69 injured,
6 August 2022, Croatia, coach carrying pilgrims, 12 fatalities, 32 injured.

When I heard of the Polish coach accident in Germany last Sunday, my first thought was: "those must have been pilgrims". A lot has changed over the last decade. Travelling by planes has become more affordable, private motoring has become more prevalent, long-distance trains are getting more popular. The very latter, given environmental impact of various forms of travelling, needs to be developed. 

Today nearly nobody takes many-hour trips by coach, except for pilgrims, who hold strong as the last bastion of low-cost travels. I wonder what drives it. Is it the cost only? Is the door-to-door journey character not facilitated by other means of transport a meaningful factor? Is it the fear of flying? Or maybe the collective character of being a group of people stuck together inside a vehicle rented for them only? Whatever the reason is, they choose the least safe (except for private motoring) form of travelling. I wonder if they have all those risks in mind. Even if so, do they think God takes care of them and shields them from risks? And if the risks materialises, do they perceive it a God's will?

I recently travel a lot and each time I set off, I have it and the back of my mind I might not be back home safe and sound. So far, each my return home was without tribulations and I feel deep gratitude for it.