At around one in the morning, on the M3 motorway in eastern Hungary, a Polish coach left the carriageway near Mezokeresztes and overturned. Twelve people were killed, around ten are seriously injured, and dozens more escaped with minor injuries. Eleven of the dead were killed at the scene; one more died in hospital.

The coach was carrying 57 passengers and two drivers, travelling from Serbia to Poland. That means the vehicle had covered the entire route through the region before reaching the Hungarian motorway - the same route dozens of coaches full of our people travel every summer weekend.

The rescue took hours. Police and firefighters had to pull trapped passengers out through the windows, and civilian crane equipment was called in to lift the damaged 24-tonne vehicle. Only by raising the rear axle could they reach those still pinned underneath the coach.

The driver is in custody

According to initial information, the most likely cause is falling asleep at the wheel. The driver has been detained, and the stretch of motorway was closed for the investigation. Poland sent another coach for the survivors.

And here comes the question that is neither Hungarian nor Polish. A coach with 59 people on a long night route with two drivers - how many hours was each of them at the wheel, were the prescribed breaks taken, and who checks that while the vehicle passes through four countries? The tachograph will say. The question is whether anyone looks at it before a crash, or only after one.

Overnight international coach lines across the Balkans and Central Europe have run on the same model decade after decade: the cheapest ticket, the longest route, the least sleep. Twelve families are counting empty seats today - and oversight of those routes still rests mainly on nothing going wrong.