Ahead of Their Time? How One Man's Fight for Bus Safety Inspired My Own Journey

Reflections on persistence, inspiration and why some things are worth fighting for

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are my own and are written in a personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of the RMT or any other organisation unless explicitly stated.

Sometimes the most interesting stories in transport are not about vehicles, technology or timetables.

They are about people.

People who refuse to let something go.

People who experience tragedy or injustice and decide that others should not have to endure the same thing.

People who refuse to accept that "nothing can be done".

And people whose ideas are often ahead of their time.

This is one such story.

But it is also, in many ways, my own.

A Life Changed In An Instant

Many people involved in transport policy and bus safety will know the story of my friend Tom Kearney.

In December 2009, Tom was critically injured by a Transport for London contracted bus on Oxford Street.

Whilst recovering from life-changing injuries, he discovered something that genuinely shocked him.

There was no meaningful public reporting of bus safety performance.

Coming from an industrial background where accountability, transparency and organisational learning were taken seriously, he found it astonishing that so little information existed about the safety performance of one of the largest bus operations in the world.

Many people would have understandably focused on rebuilding their own lives.

Tom chose a different path.

He decided to do something.

Not for a week.

Not for a year.

But for the next fifteen years.

Through persistence and hard work, he successfully campaigned for Transport for London to introduce quarterly bus safety reporting and confidential safety reporting systems for bus drivers.

The principles behind them were hardly revolutionary.

Rail, aviation and maritime industries had embraced similar approaches for decades.

Transparency.

Learning.

Reporting without fear.

Understanding trends.

Preventing harm before tragedy occurs.

Yet despite their success in London, national adoption has remained elusive.

Recently, correspondence shared by Tom with Ruth Cadbury MP, Chair of the Transport Select Committee, caught my attention.

One sentence stood out.

"I wasn't aware of the gap in responsibility re bus safety."

What struck me was not frustration.

It was hope.

Because it reminded me that ideas are not always rejected because they are wrong.

Sometimes they simply arrive before institutions, politics or society are ready to embrace them.

I Owe Tom More Than He Probably Realises

I say this openly because people deserve to know when they have made a difference.

I owe Tom a lot.

Much of my own interest in transport safety, policy and systems thinking began through listening to him and following his work.

Long before I was writing blogs, sending Freedom of Information requests or discussing transport issues with planners, academics and safety professionals, I was simply listening.

I saw someone who refused to reduce safety to individual blame.

Someone who understood that serious incidents rarely have a single cause.

Someone who believed organisations should learn rather than simply punish.

Those ideas resonated with me because they reflected much of what I had seen throughout my own working life.

Not just in transport.

But across other industries too.

Why I Care

People sometimes ask why I become so invested.

Why I spend hours writing blogs.

Why I chase FOI requests.

Why I campaign about heat in buses, welfare facilities, toilet access, concessionary fares, bus stop locations or safety culture.

Why I spend evenings representing members, drafting appeals and grievances or worrying about people who are frightened they are about to lose their livelihood.

The answer is simple.

Because I care.

Always have.

Sometimes too much.

I care when a member rings me in tears because they think they are going to lose everything.

I care when a driver spends hours broken down without water or toilet facilities.

I care when somebody sits in a bus cab approaching 40°C.

I care when an elderly passenger struggles because of decisions made by people who never use the service.

I care when disabled people are left behind.

I care when systems punish individuals without first understanding why something happened.

And I care because behind every statistic, every timetable, every policy and every disciplinary case there are real people.

And real people matter.

This Is Who I Am

This is who I am.

The bloke who gets too invested.

The bloke who cannot let things go.

The bloke who writes letters at midnight.

Who reads Select Committee reports.

Who sends FOI requests.

Who drafts appeals.

Who annoys people.

Who loses cases.

Who wins some.

Who gets frustrated.

Who keeps going.

Because that is the truth.

I have never been good at seeing something wrong and simply walking away.

Sometimes I wish I could switch off more easily.

But then I think about the people affected by the decisions, systems and policies we are talking about.

The driver worried about fatigue.

The member facing a disciplinary.

The passenger who depends on the bus.

The elderly person left isolated.

The disabled person whose journey becomes harder because nobody thought about accessibility properly.

The family affected by a serious incident.

And then I remember why I cannot just shrug my shoulders and say it is someone else's problem.

Inspiration Has To Become Action

Listening to people like Tom Kearney and remembering the example of Bob Crow has taught me something important.

It is not enough to care quietly.

If something matters, you have to act.

For me, that has meant writing, researching, asking questions, submitting FOI requests, engaging with MPs, contacting government departments, speaking with journalists, preparing evidence, supporting members and using union structures such as branch resolutions, conferences and wider democratic processes to try to push issues forward.

Not every letter gets answered.

Not every resolution succeeds.

Not every campaign wins.

But every question asked, every piece of evidence gathered and every conversation started can help move the debate forward.

That is something I learned from Tom's persistence and Bob's belief that working people should never be afraid to stand up and fight for what they believe in.

Their influence on me is not just about admiration.

It is about trying, in my own way, to turn concern into action.

I Did Not Get Here By Accident

We are all shaped by people.

My late father taught me that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing properly.

Tom Kearney taught me that one determined person can make a difference.

And another man who shaped my outlook was the late Bob Crow.

I miss Bob.

He was taken far too soon.

I admired him greatly.

Like Tom, he believed ordinary people mattered.

He believed working people deserved dignity, fairness and somebody prepared to stand up and fight for them.

He understood that progress rarely comes from accepting the status quo.

Tom and Bob were very different men.

But both shared something important.

Neither believed ordinary people were powerless.

Neither believed change belonged exclusively to politicians, chief executives or people with impressive titles.

And both demonstrated that persistence matters.

Campaigns Fail

Believe me, I know.

Cases are lost.

Resolutions are ruled out.

Governments reject amendments.

Letters go unanswered.

Campaigns stall.

People move on.

Progress can feel painfully slow.

But every campaign leaves something behind.

A conversation.

An idea.

A relationship.

A report.

A question.

A seed.

And seeds sometimes take years to grow.

Seat belts.

Drink-driving laws.

Smoking bans.

Confidential reporting.

Safe Systems.

Fatigue management.

Many things we now regard as common sense were once resisted.

Good ideas are not always rejected because they are wrong.

Sometimes they are simply ahead of their time.

But evidence has a habit of outlasting politics.

Proud To Be A Bus Driver

People sometimes assume operational experience and strategic thinking somehow belong in different worlds.

I disagree.

I am proud to be a bus driver.

Nearly twenty years behind the wheel has taught me things no report ever could.

It has shown me pressure.

Fatigue.

Human behaviour.

Compassion.

Frustration.

And the difference public transport makes to people's lives.

Transport is not abstract to me.

It is people.

It is the old lady travelling to hospital.

The young person getting to college.

The worker trying to get home after a long shift.

The vulnerable person who depends on a bus to avoid isolation.

And perhaps that is why I care so much.

Because transport changes lives.

Looking Back

If somebody had told me a few years ago that I would find myself discussing transport with academics, road safety professionals, consultants, planners and policy specialists, I would probably have laughed.

I am still the same bloke from Nottingham who drives a bus.

But perhaps that is the point.

Good ideas do not belong to job titles.

Experience matters.

Evidence matters.

Passion matters.

And none of us know where one conversation might lead.

Thank You

This article is really a thank you.

To my dad.

To Bob Crow.

To Tom Kearney.

To those who inspired me.

To those who challenged me.

To the members I have represented.

To colleagues and friends.

And to those who have simply said:

"Keep going."

Because there have been times when I needed to hear it.

And if I have one hope, perhaps it is this.

That one day somebody else might say:

"I became interested in transport because of something Lee wrote."

Because that is how change happens.

One conversation.

One idea.

One person.

And then another.

And another.

As the late Bob Crow famously said:

"If you fight, you won't always win. But if you don't fight, you'll always lose."

It was one of his many sayings, and one that has always resonated with me.

I have seen that philosophy embodied in different ways throughout my life.

In Bob.

In Tom.

And in my own small way, I hope to honour that spirit by continuing to ask questions, challenge where necessary and speak up for the causes and people I believe in.

Because some things are worth caring about.

And some things are worth fighting for.

About the Author

Lee Odams is Branch Secretary of the Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Bus Branch of the RMT and Secretary of the RMT National Industrial Organising Conference of Bus Workers.

With almost two decades of frontline experience in the bus industry, he writes regularly on transport policy, public transport, safety culture, accessibility, driver welfare and organisational learning.

His articles are written in a personal capacity and seek to encourage discussion around the wider role transport plays in connecting communities and improving lives.

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