RECKLESS motoring on country lanes around Chippenham and Malmesbury is putting the lives of schoolchildren at risk, according to school bus drivers.

Hatts Coaches are contracted by Wiltshire County Council to ferry children to school throughout the county.

The drivers, who carry up to 50 children aged between five and 16 on buses around the county, are worried that a serious accident could happen if commuters continue to drive dangerously.

Hatts coach driver John Hemmings, 30, regularly drives the school routes around Malmesbury and Chippenham, picking up and dropping off children.

He told the Gazette many drivers are impatient and should slow down.

"People automatically get frustrated when they see a coach on the country lanes and try and overtake when they can," he said.

"Drivers also speed round bends and once in the past few weeks I had to go on to the verge to avoid an oncoming vehicle.

"We are carrying children and if people don't slow down it is going to cause an accident."

The school buses operate from 7.30am to 9am and 3.30pm to 5.30pm, often the busiest times on the road.

Roads around Christian Malford, Wootton Bassett, Lyneham and Malmesbury have been highlighted as particularly bad by the drivers.

The council said school buses are very safe and it is working hard to train car drivers on their responsibilities.

A council spokesman said: "School buses are a safe form of transport and have a very low accident record.

"We have a programme and work with groups across the county on driver education to increase driver responsibility and we would urge drivers to drive with all due care and attention."

PC Dave Townsend of the police traffic management unit said that increased traffic meant a greater risk of accidents.

"With more and more traffic on the roads, people using country roads increase, as they use roads to avoid congestion on the trunk roads. Once traffic reaches a certain level, accidents will happen," he said.

Many country roads have a speed limit of 60mph and a study of road speeds by the Government is looking into the issue, said PC Townsend.

Wiltshire spokesman Anne Lock of pressure group Transport 2000 said: "We can believe there is a problem and I am glad to hear the bus drivers are speaking out. I know the lanes around here are very bad with even lorries pushing 60mph. We have been campaigning to have speed limits reduced to 40mph."

Transport manager at Hatts, Andy Bridgeman, urged drivers to be patient and allow coaches to pick up and drop off children in safety and not to block bus stops. "We are just asking people to be considerate. We know they are in a rush but these could be their kids on the bus," he said.