NTSB Concludes That Common Accident Prevention Equipment May Have Prevented Serious Bus Accident
In January of 2009, a medium sized tour bus with 16 passengers was involved in a very serious accident in Arizona after the bus driver became distracted and crashed. Apparently, the bus driver was distracted by something with the door to the bus and as a result, the bus, which was going 70 miles per hour, veered out of its lane of travel. Once the bus driver realized he was out of his lane, he jerked the steering wheel to get the bus back in its lane but lost control of the bus. The bus rolled over and came to rest in the oncoming lane. Seven passengers on the bus were killed in the accident, and ten were injured.
The National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the fatal accident. The NTSB concluded that if the bus had a lane departure warning system, the driver would have been alerted to the act that the bus was veering outside of its lane. Additionally, if the bus was equipped with a stability control system, the likelihood of the bus losing control and rolling over would have been reduced. Stability control systems are now fairly common on automobiles and SUV's. The NTSB noted that it is unclear from federal regulations whether medium sized buses are required to have this kind of safety equipment. As a result, the NTSB recommended that all vehicles over 10,000 pounds should have lane departure warning and stability control systems, among other safety equipment.
The NTSB's recommendation makes sense and should have been implemented years ago. If regular passenger vehicles have this safety equipment, larger vehicles that may be more susceptible to rolling over and carry many passengers should surely have at least the same, if not more, safety equipment as well.
