SteVTEC

Authorities Investigate Whether Teen Driver Had Role in Deadly Alabama Bus Crash



HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate a school bus crash that killed three students on Monday as officials consider whether a teenage driver from the same school may have been at least partly to blame.

Huntsville Police Chief Rex Reynolds said an orange Toyota Celica driven by another Lee High student apparently came close to or struck the bus, causing it to swerve. The bus plunged 30 feet from an Interstate 565 overpass Monday afternoon, landing nose first, killing two girls and injuring more than 30 other students. A third girl died later at the hospital.

Reynolds declined to say whether charges would be filed against the Lee High School student driving the Celica.

From her window seat in a school bus packed with laughing classmates, LaWanda Jefferson spotted the car seconds before she felt herself catapulted sideways.

"The bus went to the side, and I guess it went over," she said. "When it was falling ... I was just glad when it hit the ground."

"They were falling on each other. People were screaming, yelling, crying," said Jefferson, 16, who suffered fractures to her left arm and cuts and bruises to her face.

More than 30 Lee High School students and the bus driver were taken to Huntsville Hospital, which became a hectic trauma center Monday with emergency physicians and staff called in to help as ambulances brought in the severely injured.

Five people, including the bus driver, had undergone surgery, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Police said the bus, taking students to classes at a downtown tech center, swerved on the overpass, plowed through a concrete barrier and plunged to the street below.

Students on the bus, which was not equipped with seat belts, were screaming when rescue workers arrived. "They were thrown all over the bus," said Huntsville Fire Chief Dusty Underwood.

Some had to be extracted from the crumpled front of the bus, he said.

The police chief identified the high school students who died at the scene as Christina Collier, 18, and Nicole Ford, 17. A third, Tanesha Hill, 17, died at the hospital from her injuries, Huntsville Hospital CEO David Spillers said.

Some parents were called to the scene by wailing children on cell phones. Many were angered that police held them back or had no information. At the hospital, some collapsed in tears amid more confusion.

Hospital officials said the horror of the wreck was compounded by the inability of hospital staff to identify some of the more severely injured students who were unable to talk and had no identification on them.

The police chief said the driver and a passenger in the Celica went to a hospital following the crash, but he was not aware if they were treated for injuries. He said the driver was interviewed by police.

The bus driver was in critical condition, said Brooke Thorington, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Education.

"This is a heartbreaking tragedy," said Gov. Bob Riley in a statement in Montgomery.

The NTSB has said that school buses are designed to protect occupants without the use of seat belts. A new design uses strong, well-padded, high-backed seats, closely spaced together, the NTSB has said.

However, NTSB board member Debbie Hersman said at a news conference Monday night that the board last week added school bus safety to its list of most wanted transportation safety improvements. She said the board is recommending that new standards be devised to improve safety when buses are involved in rollover crashes.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,231000,00.html
also: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_topsto...573/index.html

SteVTEC

Unbelievable.

Just the other day I was ranting on my other site about what a bunch of idiots so many Honda drivers are (in response to a thread with an open letter from a Jeep owner ranting about hondas too) with all the wrecks and even near-misses they cause. But I gave a special mention to Scion tC and Toyota Celica drivers who are equally bad, but there just aren't as many of those cars on the road so you don't notice them as much. And then this morning I see this tragedy, likely caused by one of the cars I mentioned. Mainly this seems to track with "young stupid kids" though and not any single make/model of car. But since cars like these (Japanese 4-bangers) are popular with "young stupid kids" you just end up seeing a lot of incidents like this with the same general types of cars involved.

What a waste.

mkorsu

I need to learn more about this story before passing judgement.

My first reaction was "why in the hell did the bus driver swerve??" I'm sorry, but a bus driver (any driver for that matter) needs to ALWAYS be aware of their surroundings. Swerving to avoid a side collision while on an overpass just isn't a good idea. Plus, the Celica couldn't possibly affect the bus much if it in fact was a side-swipe type of collision.

Seize

Oh man, what a tragedy

ff_

These were my thoughts too. And it must've been one heck of a "swerve" to go that far off the road.

mmarshall

Another important question is why the barrier didn't hold the bus....maybe because of its size, height, and weight.

But it also begs the question of why barricades are installed if they aren't going to do some barricading.

rai

Agree, may be giving us a fasle sense of security.

rai

This also begs the question of if seatbelts would have helped. IMO the only reason seatbelts are not on buses is to save money or paying lip service to safety while keeping the status quo.

we have seatbelts on an airplane why not on a bus?

mmarshall

Don't know the exact reasons, but I got a few guesses. First, younger kids....first and second-graders, for example......might have trouble putting them on and off. Second, they would have to be anchored to something, and if they were anchored to the bus's floor, they would make a spaghetti-like mess in front of and behind every seat that kids would be tripping over getting in and out of the seats. Third, if kids don't actually put them on PROPERLY, sometimes a unproperly fastened belt is worse than no belt at all.

mmarshall

And witnesses said it was an ORANGE Celica. If so, it must have been a Maaco or an Earl Scheib paint shop special. I don't remember Toyota ever offering an orange factory color for the Celica, at least in the U.S.

OC 335d

I don't think it's the car that matters. It happens to be that a lot of Honda drivers (especially modded) are your younger drivers. That demographic get in more accidents than others. Where I live, I see a lot of bad drivers in SUVs because they aren't paying attention and on their cell phones.

GS3Tek

iTrader: (8)

I agree about the swerving, just like the big rigs or the tankers that swerve when a stupid driver cuts them off

It's hard to sit here and type when the situation comes up, but I think plowing into that stupid driver has much less consequence than swerving and causing more deaths/mess/pile-up........hence camera should be installed for the protection of these bus drivers/truck drivers should they need to plow these idiotic drivers.

SteVTEC

yes, that's what a I said later in that paragraph.

SteVTEC

Investigators probe car's role in deadly bus crash
POSTED: 11:42 a.m. EST, November 21, 2006

• NEW: Bus driver was thrown from the bus before it plunged 30 feet off overpass
• NEW: Driver of car that veered into bus' lane says something went wrong with car
• Investigators say bus dragged 100 feet along barrier before going over edge
• Three students killed; 15 people, including bus driver, are hospitalized


HUNTSVILLE, Alabama (CNN) -- National Transportation Safety Board investigators were in Huntsville on Tuesday, trying to determine what caused a school bus to plunge off a highway overpass the day before.

The bus, carrying 43 students from Huntsville's Lee High School, fell 30 feet to the street below the overpass and landed on its front end before flipping over.

Three students were killed. (Watch how the crash has left the town in shock -- 1:40 )

The bus driver was either ejected or escaped from the vehicle before it fell, NTSB investigator Debbie Hersman said Tuesday. He was found on the overpass by rescue workers, she said.

The initial investigation indicated that a small sedan driven by a fellow high school student veered into the bus' lane, causing the bus to drag along the concrete barrier for more than 100 feet before plunging off the Interstate 565 overpass.

Police have interviewed the 17-year-old driver of the orange 1990 Toyota Celica as well as the bus driver.

They planned to reinterview the bus driver on Tuesday, Huntsville police spokesman Wendell Johnson said.

According to Hersman, the teen driver told police something went wrong with the Celica that caused it to drift into the bus' lane. The NTSB is investigating whether the car struck the bus.

The car had two flat tires after the accident, although it was unclear when they went flat and what role that might have played.

Photos of the car on the overpass showed damage to the driver's side door and the front passenger side.

Police have not decided whether the teen driver will be charged. (Watch officials describe the bus crash -- 1:16 )

Those killed were identified as Christine Collier, 18; Nicole Ford, 17; and Tanesha Hill, age unknown. Collier and Ford both died at the scene.

Fifteen students and the bus driver remained hospitalized on Tuesday, including four in critical condition.

"Huntsville has never seen an accident like this involving students," said Johnson, the police spokesman.



[more]


http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/21/bus...rss_topstories

ff_

Huh?? That makes no sense at all.

Yeah... right