Man killed in school coach crash

First Edition

SIXTY-THREE schoolchildren were treated for shock yesterday after their school coach was involved in a collision with a car on the outskirts of Leeds, writes Malcolm Pithers. The car driver died but none of the children was seriously hurt.

The accident, another in a series of crashes involving school coaches in Yorkshire and the Midlands, happened just after 9.30am. The vehicle, carrying pupils aged between 9 and 11, had left St Michael's Church of England Primary School in Leeds on its way to a village near York.

The car driver, said to be in his late 30s and from Lancashire, was trapped in the wreckage and died at the scene.

Witnesses said that the two vehicles collided near a junction regarded locally as an accident blackspot. The car slewed across the road, came to rest close to some shops and began leaking petrol.

Workmen from a building site near the scene of the collision helped the coach driver to evacuate the children.

The pupils and six teaching staff travelling with them were taken to St James's Hospital, close to the scene of the accident, but were later allowed to return to their school where parents collected them shortly afterwards.