http://bus-law.com/blog Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:37:56 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 http://bus-law.com/blog/2009/03/our-most-precious-cargo-our-most-solemn-responsibility.html http://bus-law.com/blog/2009/03/our-most-precious-cargo-our-most-solemn-responsibility.html#comments Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:12:00 +0000 gjohnson http://bus-law.com/blog/?p=17
What is more disturbing is the number of school bus crashes which occur in the United States.

safeguard4kids, proponents of seat belts for school buses, lists these NHTSA statistics:

Since different organisations have their own ways of reporting, tracking and calculating school bus accidents and injuries, it is difficult to know how many children are actually injured in school bus accidents. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that school bus crash data is incomplete and that injuries cannot be reliably estimated.1 We do know, however, that lap-shoulder belts can make a significant impact on injury reduction.

* According to the April 2002 NHTSA Report to Congress, every day there are over 144 school bus accidents (26,000 per year) in America and more than 9,500 children are injured in school bus accidents each year.
* According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), there were an estimated 51,100 school bus-related injuries treated in U.S. emergency departments from 2001 to 2003, which averages to approximately 17,000 children injured in school bus accidents each year. This is the first study to describe nonfatal school bus–related injuries to U.S. children and teenagers treated in U.S. hospital emergency departments using a national sample. This study identified a much greater annual number of school bus–related injuries to children than reported previously.
* Data from the General Estimates System2 indicates that 13,000 people are injured annually in school bus crashes. Of those injured, 46 percent (5,980) were school bus occupants, 8 percent were school bus drivers, 38 percent were occupants of other vehicles, and fewer than 0.05 percent each were pedestrians, pedal cyclists and non-motorists.

Additionally:

According to 2005 data from NHTSA, an average of 21 school age children die in school transportation-related traffic crashes each year. Six of those deaths occur in school transportation vehicles. This number applies only to daily school routes and does not account for extracurricular activities that take place outside of normal school hours.

When I began posting headlines related to school bus incidents and accidents, I went very quickly from concern to shock at the number of school bus accidents occurring every day in this country. I have read follow up stories of drunk driving arrests among bus drivers and wondered why such stories do not elicit the sort of nationwide outrage that other media stories do. Not only are children the most precious cargo on the road, shouldn’t we trust those responsible for their safety to be beyond reproach character-wise?

What baffles me as well is reading over and over of school-buses being rear-ended by drivers who do not seem to pay much heed to those flashing lights or FREQUENT STOPS warnings, not to mention that a school bus should raise within in all of us a heightened sense of caution and care. I cannot even deliver an analogy as I can not imagine anything more fragile and valuable than our children.

There are plenty of stories of pickups and SUVs colliding with school buses in icy weather. Living in the midwest, I have myself observed the invincible driving attitudes of some of these drivers when road conditions are dangerous. They may think they can tackle an arctic storm without slowing down, but headlines say otherwise.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but it is a fact of life that certain times on week days, we can expect that school buses are out on the road. Before we get behind the wheel of our cars and stick the keys in the ignition, we should take a moment to confirm in our minds that there is precious cargo out on those roads and it is the responsibility of each and everyone of us to make sure that cargo is safely delivered to its destination.

Again and again, seat belt regulations for school buses fall through the cracks in state legislation. That means that the burden of the responsibility lies on the shoulders of all of us.

thelegaltimes.net staff article ©2009]]> http://bus-law.com/blog/2009/03/our-most-precious-cargo-our-most-solemn-responsibility.html/feed 0 http://bus-law.com/blog/2009/03/mexican-bus-crash-kills-11-some-americans.html http://bus-law.com/blog/2009/03/mexican-bus-crash-kills-11-some-americans.html#comments Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:12:00 +0000 gjohnson http://bus-law.com/blog/?p=18
By OSCAR VILLALBA
Associated Press Writer

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico (AP) — A tractor-trailer slammed into a bus carrying Canadian and U.S. tourists on a northern Mexico highway, killing 11, officials said Tuesday.

Local officials said eight Americans are among the dead, and the U.S. Embassy has confirmed the identities of four, spokeswoman Liz Detter said. The Embassy could not release their names because next of kin had not been notified.

“Our heartfelt condolences go out to all those killed and injured in this tragedy,” Detter said.

Alberto de la Rosa Vizcaino, Civil Protection director in the city of Saltillo, said three Canadians were killed in Monday’s crash.

Canadian foreign affairs spokesman Alain Cacchione said Canadians were involved in the crash but he declined to provide further details for privacy reasons.

One of those killed was Ana Maria Bujanos, a middle-school reading teacher from Brownsville, Texas.

Her husband, Chris Bujanos, said a friend told him Tuesday morning after hearing his wife named as one of the victims on the radio, and a U.S. consulate representative called him to confirm her death.

“Tomorrow would have been our 33rd wedding anniversary, that’s why I’m taking it so hard,” Bujanos said.

Ana Maria Bujanos, 56, who taught at Cummings Middle School in Brownsville, was traveling to Zacatecas with another teacher from Harlingen during their spring break.

She had taken similar trips for years, her husband said. The bus picked them up in Harlingen on Monday morning and was scheduled to return Thursday evening, he said.

Coahuila state police commander Armando Santana said 11 people were killed in the crash and 15 injured. The injured were taken to three hospitals in Coahuila.

Santana said the bus was carrying retirees from McAllen, Texas, to the northern state of Zacatecas. Detter said 19 Americans were on board.

The truck driver apparently lost control and swerved into the bus’s lane on a highway outside Saltillo, Santana said. He said the bus driver was killed and the truck driver was among the injured.

Duane DeBruyne, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said his agency is supporting an investigation.

“The Mexican state and local police will be the lead authorities,” DeBruyne said.

____

Associated Press writers Christopher Sherman in McAllen, Texas, and Alexandra Olson in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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By MICHAEL RUBINKAM
Associated Press Writer

EASTON, Pa. (AP) — The death of a 12-year-old boy who was hit by a bus outside school as he horsed around with friends was a tragic accident that does not warrant criminal charges, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Dakota Galusha was gently shoved by a 13-year-old friend and stumbled backward over a curb and under the rear wheels of the bus before class two weeks ago, Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli said.

“There is no evidence that the deceased and (the student) had any personal problems between them. To the contrary, it appears that they had a well-known, friendly relationship,” Morganelli said.

The student’s name was not released.

Dakota’s mother had just dropped him off at Northampton Middle School outside Allentown when the accident occurred at about 7:15 a.m. on Jan. 26. Dakota kiddingly told his friend he had put something in his pond and, as a reply, the boy gave Dakota a push, the prosecutor said.

The bus that hit Dakota was going 3 to 5 mph as it approached the curb to drop students off. Its rear wheels ran over the boy’s midsection.

A coroner ruled Dakota’s death a homicide. But Morganelli said the evidence did not support a criminal charge of involuntary manslaughter, which requires reckless or grossly negligent behavior where a death could reasonably be foreseen.

“I do not find that (the boy) could have foreseen that his friendly push of his friend would place his friend in danger of death,” Morganelli said. “Clearly, the untimely death of 12-year-old Dakota Galusha was tragic. It was not, however, the result of criminally culpable conduct.”

Morganelli said Galusha’s parents, Kendall and Dina Galusha, agreed.

“They expressed no anger (toward the child) whatsoever,” he said.

Dakota, who went by the nickname “Kota,” played baseball, football and basketball and liked to snowboard. He was a staunch New York Giants fan.

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By JON GAMBRELL
Associated Press Writer


LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) _ A Texas bus driver in a crash last year that killed four people will face manslaughter charges because there isn’t enough evidence to charge him with negligent homicide.

Twenty-nine-year-old Felix Badillo Tapia was charged Wednesday with four counts of manslaughter in the November 2007 crash in Arkansas. They each carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Felony negligent homicide charges would require proof of drug or alcohol intoxication. Prosecutor Fletcher Long says authorities did not conduct a field sobriety test on the suspect.

Tapia was driving a Tornado Bus Co. bus when it slammed into a pickup truck and a tractor-trailer. The crash killed three bus passengers and the pickup’s driver.

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By JUAN CARLOS LLORCA
Associated Press Writer

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) _ Prosecutors said Monday that 15 charred bodies found in a burned-out bus were shot before they were set on fire.

At least 14 of the dead were Nicaraguan, including the driver, said Attorney General Amilcar Velazquez.

The bus left Nicaragua with 16 passengers, but only 15 bodies were found after the bus burned on Saturday on an unpaved road in a mountain valley.

It is unclear was happened to the 16th passenger.

Police spokesman Donald Gonzalez said the killings may have been drug related. He said parts of the vehicle had been violently torn away, as if someone was looking for secret compartments.

Velazquez says bullets and shell casings were found at the scene, and authorities have confirmed the victims were shot, explaining why there were no signs that anyone tried to flee the burning vehicle. All the dead were found in their seats.

The bus was on a charter route that carried Nicaraguan vendors to Guatemala, where they would buy things to sell at home.

Driver Carlos Paiz had driven the same route every weekend for the past four years, according to his relative, Donald Sandoval, who said he didn’t know why the bus was targeted.

“It was a bus that left from (Nicaragua) and anyone could get on,” he said.

Guatemala has struggled with growing drug and gang violence.

In March, near where the bus was found, 11 people were killed in a gang fight in which several vehicles were torched.

And the charred bodies of three Salvadoran members of the Central American Parliament were found along a rural road in February 2007.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.]]> http://bus-law.com/blog/2008/11/victims-of-guatemalan-bus-fire-were-shot-first.html/feed 0 http://bus-law.com/blog/2008/11/german-officials-spark-may-be-cause-of-bus-fire.html http://bus-law.com/blog/2008/11/german-officials-spark-may-be-cause-of-bus-fire.html#comments Wed, 05 Nov 2008 07:57:00 +0000 gjohnson http://bus-law.com/blog/?p=28
German officials: spark may be cause of bus fire

HANNOVER, Germany (AP) _ A bus fire that killed 20 people in northern Germany may have been caused by a spark from the undercarriage, prosecutors said Wednesday, discounting an initial theory that the blaze was sparked by a cigarette.

Testimony from the 13 survivors of Tuesday night’s fire established that it started in a bathroom in the middle of the bus, said local fire chief Bernd Keitel.

Passengers told officials they saw smoke seeping from behind the bathroom door. When they opened it, flames quickly engulfed the bus, trapping those seated to the rear.

Keitel told reporters he suspected that a spark in the bus’s undercarriage may have set light to gases from the bathroom area. He said it was unlikely that the blaze was sparked by a passenger smoking clandestinely — smoking is illegal on buses in Germany — in the bathroom. He did not offer details.

A police spokesman said survivors told authorities immediately after the blaze that the fire appeared to have broken out after a person smoked a cigarette in the bathroom.

The bus was carrying 32 passengers aged between 46 and 79, according to police. The 51-year-old driver, who was not identified, was the only person so far to have been discharged from the hospital. Three people remained in critical condition with severe burns.

Georg Wessling, a spokesman for the Lower Saxony state’s justice ministry, said prosecutors would investigate whether someone on the bus or elsewhere might be responsible for negligent manslaughter. He said there were no suspects, and added that authorities have not yet been able to identify any of the 20 victims, due to the severity of the fire.

Autopsies and DNA testing have been ordered.

The Mercedes Benz bus had been chartered by a tour organizer to take a group of seniors on a day trip to a farm near Hannover. It was on its way back to the city when the fire broke out.

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