Sheesh, SMH give us all a break. If this did not involve Qantas, I am sure it would not have been reported. Do we see reports of every near miss involving a bus? I suspect not. Hope the passengers recover, but goodness, people all over the country get sore necks from near misses every single day.
You may be very right about the timing of such a report,
dajob, but I dunno whether it is strictly fair to compare regular (landside) driving with that within the airport perimeter (airside) given issues such as the slow drivng speeds and many inherent additional airside dangers.
There are various driving regulations set by each airport operator, including relatively slow driving speeds, especially within apron areas and within the vicinity of aircraft. All drivers are compelled to attain an airside driving authority (typicaly renewed every 2 years) or be under supervision/escort.
Airside driving safety is a real concern in many airports. At Sydney there may be literally 1,000s (about 7,000 at a guess) of folk licenced to drive airside. Shunts with other vehicles, extremely costly scrapes with aircraft (fix and downtime), spectacular fuel spills (which have happened both at SYD and AKL in recent years) and extremely dangerous unauthorised incursions onto taxiways and runways do all occur with varying frequencies.
In many airside buses passengers stand rather than sit increasing the risk of injury in any incident compared with road-going coaches. Being especially careful driving near such buses is part of appropriate situational awareness and safe airside driving technique.
I often sit in QPs where a view of the apron affords the opportunity to observe frequent rule violations.
IMHO it is a good thing if one or two airside incidents get reported into the public domain so people realise that there are real dangers for workers and passengers alike and the airport operators and attendent leasing companies do not become complacent.
The timing may be unlucky for QF, especially if the driver of the other vehicle was at fault.