New Jersey School Bus, Dump Truck Crash Kills Girl

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Posted on 18th February 2012 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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Federal safety officials will be getting a bird’s-eye view of the impact of a New Jersey law that requires school buses to have seat belts for passengers. They will trying to determine the effect of the restraints during an accident last week that killed an 11-year-old triplet girl.

Last Thursday a school bus and a dump truck in Burlington County, N.J., collided, an accident that not only left the girl dead but also seriously hurt her two triplet sisters, as well as an 11-year-old boy, according to The Star-Ledger of Newark.     

http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2012/02/chesterfield_school_bus_crash.html

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are investigating the accident, which took place at a four-way intersection in Chesterfield, N.J., at the crossing of Route 528 and Old York Road.

The Ledger reported that the NTSB wants to study what impact seat belts had in the aftermath of the crash. New Jersey is one of only six states that require seat belts for passengers in school buses. 

Some of the students on the bus in New Jersey were wearing seat belts, but the NTSB is trying to determine which passengers were wearing them and what effect that had on their safety, according to The Ledger.    

 http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2012/02/bus_crash_the_hunt_for_clues_t.html

At abour 8 a.m. Thursday the dump truck was traveling on Route 528 when it apparently went through an amber light and hit the bus in the driver’s side, The Ledger reported.  The school bus then hit a pole, which then partially went into the bus.

Isabelle Tezsla, one of the triplet daughters of New Jersey State Trooper Sgt. Anthony Tezsla, was killed in the crash. Her sister Natalie was no longer in critical condition, but had improved and is now in stable condition. But the third triplet, Sophie, was still in critical condition, as was 11-year-old Jonathan Zdybel, according to The Ledger.   

 http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2012/02/one_chesterfield_sister_is_sta.html

Authorities haven’t filed any charges in the accident.

 

Woman Who Sustained TBI, Amputations In Bus Accident Wins $7.85 Million Settlement

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Posted on 7th January 2012 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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A New Jersey woman who suffered brain damage, and had her left leg and right foot amputated, after being run over by a bus is getting a $7.85 million settlement, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported Saturday.  

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/01/woman_badly_hurt_by_nj_transit.html

Mercedes Perez, 59, sustained her life-changing injuries in an Oct.  9, 2008 accident in Paterson, N.J., where she was hit by a NJ Transit bus at the intersection of Cianci and Market streets. Superior Court Judge Anthony Graziano in Passaic County approved her settlement Friday, according to The Ledger.

A just-hired bus driver hit Perez while she was in the middle of a crosswalk. The Ledger reported that the bus ran over her legs, and that Perez’s head also hit the ground, knocking her out. As a result, Perez suffered traumatic brain injury, had her left leg amputated above the knee, had part of her right foot amputated, and had to have metal rings inserted in her fractured cheekbone, according to The Ledger.

In the aftermath of her devastating injuries, Perez was on a ventilator for 18 days and underwent several operations. She also got septis, The Ledger reported.

Perez’s current condition is that she is bedridden, cannot talk and is being fed by a tube.   

The woman, run over when she was on her way to the dentist, is at a rehab center in Edison, N.J., but will now be transferred to a private facility.

Bus Driver Loses Leg In Temecula Crash

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Posted on 10th August 2011 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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A chain-reaction collision occurred at 7:50 am on August 10, 2011 on Interstate 15 in Temecula, California. A RTA bus driver lost a leg at the knee and all five of his passengers were taken to the hospital. The entire front end of the bus was destroyed. Apparently the bus driver didn’t notice that traffic had stopped. He collided with a box van which was then pushed into a small SUV that flipped over. Two other SUVs were also rear ended. According to the preliminary investigation, the bus triggered the accident.

 

Safety Officials Tighten Appeal Rules After Fatal Virginia Crash

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Posted on 3rd June 2011 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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Here’s another tragic note to add to the tour bus crash in Virginia this week that killed four people.

The New York Times reported that the bus operator, Sky Express, had been allowed to keep operating while it appealed safety violations. The bottom line is that if the company hadn’t received that extension, its license would have been suspended last Saturday, three days before the fatal accident, according to The Times.

As a result of this case, U.S. Department of Transportation Ray LaHood announced Wednesday that carriers would no longer be given extra time for appeals.

“Following Tuesday’s horrific bus crash in Virginia, I have directed the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to end its practice of extending the appeals period for unsafe motorcoach companies,” LaHood said in a statement. “There is no excuse for delay when a bus operator should be put out of service for safety’s sake.”

Back in April the motor carrier administration found that Sky Express had a number of alleged violations, such as those realting to driver training, The Times reported. 

“The carrier was given an unsatisfactory rating and banned from making interstate trips,” The Times said. “Sky Express appealed the ruling and was eventually given an extension of 10 days.”

Authorities suspect that the driver of the bus that crashed in Virginia, Kin Yiu Cheung, of Queens, fell asleep while driving, which caused the accident. He has been chrged with reckless driving.

The Times reported that Sky Express has been cited for driver fatigue 46 times in the past two years.

I guess this fatal crash will wind up making it 47.

 

      

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/us/02bus.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=bus%20crash&st=cse

Washington State Tour Bus Crash Kills Two, Injures 21

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Posted on 30th May 2011 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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A tour bus crash carrying a group of soccer fans crashed this weekend in Washington State, killing two and injuring 21 others.

http://dailyrecordnews.com/news/wsp-looking-for-bus-crash-witnesses/article_40330ce0-8ae2-11e0-89af-001cc4c03286.html

As of Monday authorities were looking for witnesses to the fatal crash, which took place Saturday night near Cle Elum and involved not only the bus but several other vehicles.

A married couple on the bus, Ciro Astudillo,  51, and his wife Virginia Ocamposoriano, 45, of Pasco, Wash., died in the accident.

A man who owned a GMC pick-up truck involved in the accident, Jeffrey Irmer, 24, of Spokane was airlifted for treatment at a local hospital. More than a half dozen other people were sent to other hospitals or medical facilities for treatment. 

According to press accounts of the accident, the GMC truck was on the right shoulder of eastbound I-90, broken down, just as the bus was traveling in the right eastbound lane of the highway. The bus tried to change lanes, and in the process ran a Hyundai Elantra off the road. 

The bus driver then lost control of the bus and struck the pickup truck, with the bus flipping on its side.

A 27-year-old woman who was in the Hyundai along with her daughter survived.

The bus was transported fans who were on their way home from a Mexico-Ecuador soccer game in Seattle back to Moses Lake.

Elmer Schulman, a 67-year-old Pasco resident, was driving the bus and was uninjured.

The accident is still under investigation.

Bus Driver Faces DUI Charges In Fatal Chicago Accident

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Posted on 5th May 2011 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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The tour bus driver who struck and killed a young woman in Chicago Tuesday night has been charged with driving while under the influence.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chibrknews-dui-charges-in-fatal-streeterville-accident-20110505,0,469336.story

David Soto of West Berwyn was charged with aggravated DUI resulting in death charges in stemming from an accident that killed graphic designer Justyna Palkam 26. She was struck while traversing a crosswalk in Chicago’s Streeterville  neighborhood.

According to The Chicago Tribune, 47-year-old Soto failed a drug test for cocaine.

Soto, as it turns out, has a checkered past and is a wanted man.

First of all, Soto’s commercial driver’s license had been suspended back in 2008,  after he was charged with speeding and not having insurance, The Tribune reported. But he obtained high-risk insurance and did have a current valid commercial license.

But that wasn’t Soto’s only trouble with the law.

He was also being sought by police on charges of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child and aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a child younger than 13, according to The Tribune.

Soto allegedly assaulted two 8-year-old girls in 2009. Prior to that, in 1993, Soto was actually convicted of aggravated criminal sexual assault, according to The Tribune, and got out of prison in 1997.

       

Chicago Art Director Struck And Killed By Tour Bus

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Posted on 4th May 2011 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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 Here’s a terrible tale.

A 26-year-old woman died after being struck by a tour bus Tuesday night in Chicago. Justyna Palka, an art director and graphic designer for Ogilvy & Mather, was crossing a street in her Windy City neighborhood of Streeterville when she was hit.     

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-bus-crash-death-20110504,0,2882483.story

The fatal accident took place shortly before 7 p.m. as Palka, who was born in Poland, was making her way through a crosswalk on Columbus Drive at Illinois Street, according to The Chicago Tribune.

Palka had the right of way as a pedestrian, even though the light on Illinois was green, witnesses told The Tribune.

She was transported to Northwestern University Hospital, where she died shortly after her arrival.

 The bus driver was in custody but hadn’t been charged by police.

Federal Safety Regulators Join In Probe of Fatal New Jersey Turnpike Bus Crash

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Posted on 20th March 2011 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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It’s official: The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating a bus crash on the New Jersey Turnpike that killed two people last Monday night.

The Star-Ledger of Newark reported that the NTSB was joining the probe into the fatal Garden State accident, as well as investigating a bus crash that killed 15 people and took place a week ago this past Saturday in the Bronx. 

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/03/national_transportation_safety.html

Both accidents involved low-cost buses that were transporting passengers from Manhattan’s Chinatown. In the New Jersey accident in East Brunswick, bus driver Wei Wang, 50, and passenger Troy Nguyen, 20, were killed.

Legwork by The Star-Ledger revealed that the bus company involved in the Turnpike accident, Super Luxury Tours of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., “has one of the worse driver safety ratings in the nation.”

The bus involved in the accident has been traveling from Chinatown to Phildelphia.         

Second Chinatown Tour Bus Crashes, Killing Two On New Jersey Turnpike

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Posted on 14th March 2011 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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Monday night there was a second tour bus crash in the New York metro area, with this one killing two people and injuring 40 others. The accident will likely add to the cry by lawmakers for a federal probe of the low-cost bus companies that serve Manhattan’s Chinatown.

A Super Luxury Tours bus crashed near exit 9 of the New Jersey Turnpike, near East Brunswick, N.J.  The bus driver died after he went through the windshield, and a passenger later died at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, according to CNN.com. 

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/03/14/new.jersey.bus.accident/#

That bus was en route from Manhattan’s Chinatown to Philadelphia.

Monday’s fatal bus accident comes in the wake of a horrific tour bus crash in the Bronx last weekend. That tragedy has now taken 15 lives, with another passenger succombing to his injuries Monday. 

Authorities are questioning the bus driver’s claim that he lost control when the bus was clipped by a tractor trailer, since several passengers reported that he had been swerving off the road shortly before the accident.

That accident is under investgation by the National Transportation Safety Board, and authorities suspect that bus driver Ophadell Williams actually fell asleep at the wheel, then lost control of the World Wide Tours bus. The bus, traveling from a casino in Connecticut back to Chinatown in Manhattan on Interstate 95, rolled on its side and crashed into a sign stanchion. 

The stanchion cut the bus in half, creating carnage, including the decapitation of one passenger.

According to a report Monday in The New York Times, witnesses told authorities that right before the accident the bus had repeatedly veered onto the highway’s shoulder, as if the driver was nodding off.     

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/nyregion/14bus.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=bus%20crash%20&st=cse

It was also disclosed Monday in various press reports, including one in The Wall Street Journal, that Williams has a criminal record. He was convicted of a 1990 manslaughter charge and was imprisoned for several years before being paroled in 1994, according to The Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703908304576201041862413506.html

While on parole, he was arrested for grand larceny, was convicted, and then was sent back to prison until 2002, The Journal reported. 

Even New York City Mayor Michael Bloombeg chimed in on the accident, telling reporters that there didn’t appear to be any evidence that a truck had hit the bus. 

The accident in the Bronx has Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and other legislators calling for a major probe by the NTSB of federal regulation of low-cost bus companies.

Monday’s accident will give Schumer more fodder.    

 

 

 

Appeals Court Ditches $1.8 Million Jury Award To Man Hit By Bus

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Posted on 13th March 2011 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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An appellate court apparently believes you must look before you leap — into a street.

That’s why the appeals court in New York City has thrown out a $1.8 million jury award to a man who was struck by a bus in Harlem. The March 8 ruling means that there will have to be a new trial for Claude Williams.  

http://online.wsj.com/article/APe6bff9af0a344f91bf6643f0cae694e1.html#printMode

Williams sustained a concussion and other injuries in a September 2003 accident. Williams claimed that he was struck by a bus that ran a red light and was too close to the curb, according to the Associated Press,

In overturning the jury verdict, the appeals court noted that there hadn’t been any witnesses to corroborate Williams’ contention that the bus ran a red light. 

But the appellate court pointed out that there was evidence that Williams had walked into the path of the bus without looking, and that he was not in a crosswalk, according to AP.      

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