Bus travel

Is bus travel safe?

In Britain, a bus or coach is one of the safest ways to get anywhere. The Department for Transport counts 0.10 deaths among bus and coach occupants per billion passenger km in 2024 and 0.21 on a ten-year average. That works out at about 0.02 to 0.03 micromortsMicromortA one-in-a-million chance of death. It lets you compare the risk of very different activities on one scale.More in the glossary per 100 miles, roughly the same as the train and a fifth to a tenth of the risk in a car.

In absolute numbers, Britain's roads killed 3 bus or coach occupants in 2024 and 5 in 2025, out of billions of passenger journeys. The two real catches are that most bus injuries do not involve a crash at all, and that a coach in another country can be a very different proposition.

How does a bus compare with a car or a bike?

The DfT's own modal table makes the comparison directly, per billion passenger km:

Mode (Britain)	Deaths, 2024	Deaths, 10-year average	Killed or seriously injured, 2024
Bus or coach	0.10	0.21	11.2
Rail (mainline)	0.17	0.20	19.6
Car	1.02	1.13	17.3
Pedal cycle	14.5	16.6	688

Source: DfT table RAS0203. Single-year bus figures jump around because the totals are so small; one coach crash can double them.

Size helps. A bus weighs several times as much as a car, sits high above most impacts and spends much of its time at urban speeds. The driver is a trained professional with limits on driving hours. That is why serious injuries are rarer per mile on a bus than in a car, even though many passengers stand and no one wears a belt.

Why most bus injuries happen without a crash

About 320 bus and coach occupants were killed or seriously injured in Britain in each of 2024 and 2025, and around 2,000 were hurt in total in 2025. A large share of those are not collisions. They are falls: a standing passenger thrown off balance when the bus brakes, swerves or pulls away, or someone stepping off as the doors close. Older passengers break bones in falls that a younger person would shrug off.

This is the part you control. Sit down if you can, and if you stand, hold a rail with one hand rather than reading your phone with both. Wait for the bus to stop before getting up.

The walk to the stop is riskier than the ride

For American school buses, the numbers are striking. NHTSA counted 119 occupants of school transport vehicles killed in 2015–2024, about 12 a year across the whole country, and two-thirds of them were adults. In the same crashes, 162 pedestrians died. Among school-age children, 77 died as pedestrians near school transport and 39 on board. Children waiting at stops, crossing in front of the bus or running after it face more danger than those inside.

The same logic applies to adults on city buses. Crossing behind or in front of a stopped bus, where neither you nor drivers can see clearly, is a common way pedestrians get hit.

Coaches abroad are a different risk

British and EU figures describe well-regulated fleets, tachograph limits on driving hours and good roads. In much of the world, long-distance coaches and minibuses run on worn tyres, with one driver working through the night on mountain roads. Most of the world's road deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries, and a single bus going off a road can kill dozens. If you travel by coach abroad, the company you pick and the time you travel matter more than anything else on this page.

How to travel by bus more safely

1. Sit if you can, and hold on if you stand. Falls are the most common way bus passengers get hurt.
2. Stay seated until the bus stops, especially if you are older or carrying bags.
3. Wear the seat belt on coaches. In a rollover, unbelted passengers are thrown around or out of the vehicle.
4. Never cross directly in front of or behind a stopped bus. Wait until it pulls away and you can see the road.
5. Teach children the stop rules: stand back from the kerb, wait for the bus to stop, and cross only where the driver can see them.
6. Abroad, pay for the better operator. Choose well-known companies with newer coaches, belts and two drivers on long routes, and prefer daytime travel on mountain roads.
7. Get off if the driver seems drunk or exhausted. Losing a fare is cheap.

How we scored it

Fatality risk (95) is very low per 100 miles in Britain, but we stay at the bottom of the band because coach travel in many countries is riskier. Injury risk (90) is lower per mile than in a car. Controllability (50) is modest: you can stay seated and choose the operator, but not drive. Compare driving and cycling for the same trip.