Sulu

Older full-size, body-on-frame pickup trucks (and the large SUVs based on them), despite their heavy frames, had weak bodies that fared very poorly in IIHS moderate-overlap tests of the time. And cutting, lengthening and re-welding those SUVs to turn them into extra-long limousines would weaken them even more. An impact with something stationary from high speed, like in this crash, likely would have done great damage to the structure of the stretch limo.

That was something I was wondering about, if the limo rolled. In addition to the poor structural strength of those old pickup trucks and SUVs, the roofs and supporting pillars would have been weak and would likely collapse if the vehicle rolled over. That era of pickup trucks was before the IIHS started testing for roof strength.

If the limo rolled and the roof crushed, passengers wearing seatbelts may not have been saved by seatbelts.

Train them early and wearing seatbelts soon becomes second-nature to them. You may have to have extra adult(s) (in addition to the driver) in school buses full of young children, to check and help do up seatbelts, and help get the children quickly and safely off the bus (in both normal and emergency situations), but isn't that worth it?

BTW, Japan also requires the use of seatbelts on buses. We were reminded a number of times prior to starting our Japanese bus tours last year, by both the driver and the tourguide, to do up our seatbelts.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

this video gives some backgrounds on the lovely people killed and precisely what happened in the accident.

question: did the driver die? and i hope this results in criminal charges and bankruptcy for the limo company owners.

UDel

This was the footage I saw, just a glimpse of it being towed out but it did not look that damaged to kill everyone on board though the limo may be longer then it appears in the video and the major damage could be in the front section you don't see in the video, it does not look like it rolled, no witnesses or recreations have it rolling which is pretty shocking how the death toll is so high from such a large vehicle that did not roll or explode in a single car accident.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/limo-cr...d-inspections/

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

well now that i think about it imagine a party bus style bench seating and just running into parked vehicle at the estimated 60 mph. Everyone is going to be flying, regardless of rollover or not

G Star

iTrader: (2)

That is insane, how horrible for all of the families involved. They were all connected, it must be extremely devastating for those also in this network of friends and family.

mjeds

the son of the owner (labeled as the operator) of the Limo Business has been arrested for Criminally Negligent Homicide, the father (the owner) is has apparently out the country, believed to be in Pakistan

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ne...cid=spartanntp

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

off-topic posts removed. thank you.

Benoit

I don't understand why it would be the case. If the limo driver has done a fault, the limo driver should be charged, and the insurance of the company will have to pay. This seems logical.
Only if the company ordered or provoqued this situation, then it should be additional charges against it.

It's like writing that after a car crash, dodge should be charged, even if the car isn't at fault.

oldcajun

The limo had failed repeat safety inspections and was not legal to be carrying passengers. The driver did not have the proper license to be carrying passengers. These are issues with the limo company and are criminally negligent. Jail time is indicated. Insurance is probably void due to the failed inspection and wrong driver license.

tex2670

This is just not correct. If the limo company knowingly put unsafe cars on the road (possibly evidenced by repeated inspection violations), then there is potential criminal liability. AND, if they did that, then the insurance company may be able to deny coverage. You can't burn down your house and make an insurance claim; similarly, if you purposely or knowingly put unsafe cars on the road, you may not have insurance coverage for that either.

shadow1118

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVdI...youtu.be&t=209

Crash test of a limo, really interesting.

Sulu

Wow! I never expected the rear passenger compartment to hold up so well (strengthened during the chop and lengthening of the Lincoln Town Car?), that the rear passenger door could still be opened without the jaws of life. I am assuming that the driver, essentially caught between a rock and a hard place (the wall and the strengthened passenger compartment) would have died instantly.

Not surprising was how the unbelted rear passengers fared, even though the passenger compartment held up well. Unrestrained, they continued flying and eventually hitting the inside of the car (even going through that passenger compartment bulkhead divider) and each other. I am assuming the passengers would be dead also?

If the passenger compartment had collapsed, that would have made things worse. But what could be worse than death?

LS430FL

I am sure there will be a lot of civil cases as well. In Florida for example, cars are considered dangerous instrumentalities. The owner of the vehicle is responsible for the negligence of the driver. Additionally I see negligent entrustment as they knowingly allowed him to drive this vehicle knowing he did not have proper license. This is a very unfortunate circumstance.

mmarshall

I bumped this old thread (which, at the time, we discussed here at length on the forum) to add the news that the driver of that limo (who was charged with numerous counts of negligent homicide) accepted a plea deal for 5 years probation and no service in any commercial-transportation company for that period. Seems like a pretty light sentence to me for an accident that serious, but that's what the prosecution/defense and the judge all agreed to. Also, some of the blame may also go to regulators in the state that allowed the company to keep using what was clearly a defective vehicle.

The vehicle in question was a 2001 Ford Excursion. I remember test-driving one myself. Even with brand-new suspension/steering/brakes, that dinosaur was a handful.....probably the worst-driving mass-production vehicle I've ever sampled. It drove and handled like a battleship. Its 7000 lbs.+ weight was clearly too heavy for the underpinnings that Ford gave it....and the one I sampled was lightly-loaded with just two persons in it, not full of passengers adding even more weight (and with corroded brakes) like the one involved in the crash.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...york-sentence/

A limo operator will not face jail time after crash killed 20 in New York: ‘Our children deserve more’

Listen to article
4 min
By
Katie Shepherd
Today at 6:16 a.m. EDT




168Nauman Hussain reportedly wiped away tears as families of the victims of the deadliest U.S. transportation disaster in a decade faced him during a Thursday sentencing hearing.

Hussain, 31, operated the limousine company that managed a vehicle that was carrying 17 passengers to a 30th birthday partyin October 2018. The vehicle hurtled down a hill in rural Schoharie in Upstate New York before crashing into a ditch, killing every passenger, the driver and two other people caught in the limo’s deadly path.
Family members spent about three hours talking about their lost loved ones in a makeshift courtroom at a Schoharie high school gymnasium on Thursday. Hussain agreed to a plea deal and will not face jail time. After the hearing, Jill Perez — who lost her son Matthew Coons in the crash — told reporters there was not “enough justice for our children.”

“Our children deserve more than that,” she said.

In the days after the wreck, allegations surfaced that the limousine company had ignored warnings from state regulators and failed to decommission the faulty vehicle after an inspection identified brake problems. Police arrested Hussain, then 28, the operator of Prestige Limousine, four days after the crash and charged him with 20 counts each of manslaughter and negligent homicide.

Nearly three years later, after the trial was delayed by the pandemic, Hussain pleaded guilty on Thursday to the negligent homicide charges and was sentenced to five years of probation and 1,000 hours of community service. He was also barred from working in the commercial transportation business until the end of his probation, according to the plea agreement.

Limo company operator charged with criminally negligent homicide in New York crash that killed 20

The crash sparked a statewide push for more stringent regulations for limousine companies. Former governor Andrew M. Cuomo signed several safety bills in February 2020 that required limousines to install more seat belts and mandated that drivers who ferry nine or more passengers carry a specialized license.

The plea agreement accepted by the court on Thursday aimed to avoid a painful trial for the victims’ families. Most of the victims, who were headed to celebrate a birthday at a local brewery, knew one another. The group included four sisters from one family, two brothers from another and several married couples.

Some surviving relatives gave emotional statements during Thursday’s court hearing, the Democrat and Chronicle reported.

The mother of a 24-year-old who died in the crash detailed how distraught she was after losing her daughter Savannah Bursese, as Hussain listened from his seat.

“Although I would never wish you dead, I do wish you to suffer a life of pure hell like I do and like all the family members do,” Kim Marie Bursese told Hussain, the newspaper reported.

The judge presiding over the case admitted that many people might view Hussain’s sentence as too lenient, but he pointed to facts that had emerged over the last three years that could have created doubt for a jury.

“It just does not seem right that 20 people lost their life and the sentence is probation and community service,” Schoharie Supreme and County Court Judge George Bartlett III said, the Democrat and Chronicle reported. “But there are factual issues with regard to the defendant’s guilt.”

Last September, the National Transportation Safety Board foundthat state regulators shouldered some of the blame for the fatal collision. The NTSB ruled that the New York State Department of Transportation knew about multiple violations involving Prestige Limousine but did little to stop the company from continuing to use a vehicle with corroded brakes.

Despite those issues, federal investigators determined Prestige Limousine’s “egregious disregard for safety” probably caused the crash, the Associated Press reported.

Hussain’s plea agreement detailed how he had taken the limousine to a repair shop and asked the mechanics to check the brakes about five months before the collision. The mechanics performed some maintenance, flushing and replacing the brake fluid, but did not replace the corroded parts.

According to the plea agreement, federal investigators found the repair shop to be of “questionable quality,” adding that it performed “inadequate inspections of the crash limousine that failed to detect serious safety deficiencies before the crash.”

The agreement also said that Hussain missed a required state inspection that likely would have identified the “catastrophic brake failure” that caused the crash.

A lawyer for Hussain said the sentence was fair given the facts of the case.

“I completely understand the feelings of the victims families,” Joe Tacopina, a lawyer representing Hussain, told The Washington Post in an email. “Their pain is unimaginable. But as the court laid out in the plea agreement, there were many other factors that were responsible for this horrific tragedy. Today’s non-jail resolution was the appropriate one based on the facts despite the raw emotions.”