It is a constant theme on this blog, but it just can’t be said often enough: How many of the injuries and deaths in this Mississippi bus crash detailed below, would have been avoided with airbags and seatbelts? If buses cost many times what a car does, why can’t they include all of the safety equipment a car has?
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://fishtail.tv
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
http://waiting.com
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
Date: 8/10/2008 6:29 PM
By HOLBROOK MOHR
Associated Press Writer
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) _ Three people were killed and several injured Sunday when a casino bus carrying a group of tourists in northwestern Mississippi overturned on its way to the airport, officials said.
The bus belonged to Harrah’s Tunica and was carrying 43 people when it flipped over in a median at an intersection in Tunica, Tunica County spokesman Larry Liddell said.
Tourists on the bus were traveling to the airport for a flight to South Carolina, where many were from, officials said.
The bus was the only vehicle involved in the accident, which was still under investigation, Mississippi Highway Patrol Sgt. Leslie White said.
The injured passengers were taken to hospitals in Memphis, Tenn., about 35 miles to the north.
Twenty-seven people were taken to Baptist Memorial Hospital, spokesman Thomas Whitehead said. One was in critical condition and five were being held for observation. The rest had what Whitehead described as minor injuries.
Messages left at Regional Medical Center in Memphis were not immediately returned.
Harrah’s Entertainment operates 50 casinos worldwide, including three in Tunica: Harrah’s Tunica, Horseshoe Casino and the Sheraton Casino & Hotel. The area along the Mississippi River in the northwest corner of the state is best known for its bustling casinos.
“At this time, we’re focusing on the health and welfare of the guests involved in this tragic accident,” company officials said in a statement. The company set up a telephone hot line to give information and assistance to relatives of the crash victims.
___
Harrah’s bus crash information line: 1-800-946-4946
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
911 callers told of carnage at Texas bus wreck
Sadly, this is not the first church bus crash of the summer. Earlier this year we blogged about a fatal crash in Alabama on a cross country church camp trip. In that crash, one child died and his brother was seriously brain injured. See http://bus-accident.blogspot.com/2008/06/church-camp-caravan-crashes-in-alabama.html
These church expeditions come with significantly increased risk of injury, as the drivers are often not professionals and the trips are too long for drivers not governed by strict federal fatigue standards. See http://semi-accident.com/fatigue.html
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://fishtail.tv
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
http://waiting.com
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
Date: 8/9/2008 6:03 PM
By ANDRE COE
Associated Press Writer
SHERMAN, Texas (AP) _ Witnesses who called 911 after the crash of a charter bus that killed at least 16 people described a chaotic scene, telling emergency workers of bloody passengers crushed beneath the smoking wreckage, according to calls released Saturday by police.
The unlicensed bus carrying 55 members of a Vietnamese Catholic group from Houston to Carthage, Mo., for a religious festival smashed into a guardrail and skidded off a highway early Friday near the Texas-Oklahoma state line. Twelve people died at the scene and four more died at hospitals.
One emergency call began with a female crash victim speaking in accented English over the screams and moans of other passengers. After struggling to answer the 911 operator’s questions, she handed the phone to a man who had apparently arrived at the scene immediately after the crash.
“We’ve got people crushed underneath the bus,” the man said. “The bus is smoking. It might catch fire.”
A female caller told a 911 operator that there were passengers “just everywhere out here laid out on the ground. They are bloody.” Another caller said: “There’s people screaming for help.”
Most of the passengers were from the Vietnamese Martyrs Church and two other mostly Vietnamese congregations in Houston, heading to an annual festival honoring the Virgin Mary. The Marian Days pilgrimage, which started in the late 1970s, attracts thousands of Catholics of Vietnamese descent and includes a large outdoor Mass each day, entertainment and camping at night.
By late Saturday morning, traffic was back to normal and a damaged guardrail had been replaced. Several bouquets of carnations, tulips and roses were left on an embankment amid shards of glass and burned grass.
Authorities said the vehicle’s right front tire, which blew out, had been retreaded in violation of safety standards, said Debbie Hersman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board. The tread separated from the tire in a process called delamination. It is legal to retread such tires but they may not be used on the wheels that steer the bus, she said.
After the tire blew out, the bus skidded about 130 feet before striking a guardrail, Hersman said. It then traveled nearly 120 feet before coming to rest down the embankment.
Authorities said Saturday they believe the 2002 model bus, a 45-foot long motor coach, was equipped with a device that could record information, similar to a black box on an airplane. If that device is found, it could help investigators learn how fast the bus was going and whether the driver hit the brakes or the accelerator at the time of the crash, Hersman said.
The driver, 52-year-old Barrett Wayne Broussard, had a commercial license, but his medical certification expired in May, according to the NTSB. Broussard was stable at a hospital. Authorities took blood samples from Broussard on Friday but do not have the results, Hersman said.
Broussard was convicted in 2001 of driving while intoxicated in Houston and sentenced to 10 days in prison and a $225 fine, according to online records from the Texas Department of Public Safety. He has also been arrested at least three other times and was sentenced to two years in prison in 1998 for violating probation.
The bus operator, Iguala BusMex Inc. of Houston, had applied in June for a federal license to operate as a charter but was still awaiting approval, according to online records. The company recently filed incorporation papers, listing the same owner and address as Angel Tours Inc., which was forced by federal regulators to take its vehicles out of interstate service June 23 after an unsatisfactory review.
The review cited the company for problems in three areas: using a driver before receiving a pre-employment result, failing to require a driver to prepare a vehicle inspection report and using a driver who wasn’t medically re-examined every two years.
A May 1 review by the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration cited the company for violations including a lax drug and alcohol testing program, Hersman said. Two of five drivers did not have current medical certificates, and 27 of 28 vehicle inspections were missing, she said.
Neither entity is authorized to operate as a carrier in interstate commerce, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
The bus was registered under temporary tags that were to expire Saturday, Hersman said. The NTSB is looking into the history of the sale of the bus, which was sold by a bus company in New York.
A man at Angel Tours in Houston declined to comment Friday. The company’s voicemail system was full Saturday and not accepting new messages, and no one answered Saturday at a listing for the company’s attorney.
“We’re in the middle of a very intense investigation,” attorney Keena Greyling told the Houston Chronicle, the newspaper reported Saturday on its Web site. “Because of that, we really can’t discuss anything further.”
Vu Pham, 35, of Houston, said his brother, sister-in-law, mother and 12-year-old nephew were on the bus. His brother, whose left leg has been paralyzed since he was a boy because of polio, remained in intensive care Saturday in a Sherman hospital, he said.
“We thought it would be better for him to get on the bus because it’s a far drive,” Pham said. “Now he keeps saying that he should have driven himself.”
It was the nation’s deadliest bus crash since 2004, when 15 people were killed in a wreck in Arkansas on their way to Mississippi’s casinos. In 2005, 23 people were killed near Dallas when a bus carrying nursing home residents away from Hurricane Rita caught fire in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
___
Associated Press writers Jeff Carlton and Danny Robbins in Dallas contributed to this report.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
These church expeditions come with significantly increased risk of injury, as the drivers are often not professionals and the trips are too long for drivers not governed by strict federal fatigue standards. See http://semi-accident.com/fatigue.html
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://fishtail.tv
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
http://waiting.com
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
Date: 8/9/2008 6:03 PM
By ANDRE COE
Associated Press Writer
SHERMAN, Texas (AP) _ Witnesses who called 911 after the crash of a charter bus that killed at least 16 people described a chaotic scene, telling emergency workers of bloody passengers crushed beneath the smoking wreckage, according to calls released Saturday by police.
The unlicensed bus carrying 55 members of a Vietnamese Catholic group from Houston to Carthage, Mo., for a religious festival smashed into a guardrail and skidded off a highway early Friday near the Texas-Oklahoma state line. Twelve people died at the scene and four more died at hospitals.
One emergency call began with a female crash victim speaking in accented English over the screams and moans of other passengers. After struggling to answer the 911 operator’s questions, she handed the phone to a man who had apparently arrived at the scene immediately after the crash.
“We’ve got people crushed underneath the bus,” the man said. “The bus is smoking. It might catch fire.”
A female caller told a 911 operator that there were passengers “just everywhere out here laid out on the ground. They are bloody.” Another caller said: “There’s people screaming for help.”
Most of the passengers were from the Vietnamese Martyrs Church and two other mostly Vietnamese congregations in Houston, heading to an annual festival honoring the Virgin Mary. The Marian Days pilgrimage, which started in the late 1970s, attracts thousands of Catholics of Vietnamese descent and includes a large outdoor Mass each day, entertainment and camping at night.
By late Saturday morning, traffic was back to normal and a damaged guardrail had been replaced. Several bouquets of carnations, tulips and roses were left on an embankment amid shards of glass and burned grass.
Authorities said the vehicle’s right front tire, which blew out, had been retreaded in violation of safety standards, said Debbie Hersman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board. The tread separated from the tire in a process called delamination. It is legal to retread such tires but they may not be used on the wheels that steer the bus, she said.
After the tire blew out, the bus skidded about 130 feet before striking a guardrail, Hersman said. It then traveled nearly 120 feet before coming to rest down the embankment.
Authorities said Saturday they believe the 2002 model bus, a 45-foot long motor coach, was equipped with a device that could record information, similar to a black box on an airplane. If that device is found, it could help investigators learn how fast the bus was going and whether the driver hit the brakes or the accelerator at the time of the crash, Hersman said.
The driver, 52-year-old Barrett Wayne Broussard, had a commercial license, but his medical certification expired in May, according to the NTSB. Broussard was stable at a hospital. Authorities took blood samples from Broussard on Friday but do not have the results, Hersman said.
Broussard was convicted in 2001 of driving while intoxicated in Houston and sentenced to 10 days in prison and a $225 fine, according to online records from the Texas Department of Public Safety. He has also been arrested at least three other times and was sentenced to two years in prison in 1998 for violating probation.
The bus operator, Iguala BusMex Inc. of Houston, had applied in June for a federal license to operate as a charter but was still awaiting approval, according to online records. The company recently filed incorporation papers, listing the same owner and address as Angel Tours Inc., which was forced by federal regulators to take its vehicles out of interstate service June 23 after an unsatisfactory review.
The review cited the company for problems in three areas: using a driver before receiving a pre-employment result, failing to require a driver to prepare a vehicle inspection report and using a driver who wasn’t medically re-examined every two years.
A May 1 review by the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration cited the company for violations including a lax drug and alcohol testing program, Hersman said. Two of five drivers did not have current medical certificates, and 27 of 28 vehicle inspections were missing, she said.
Neither entity is authorized to operate as a carrier in interstate commerce, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
The bus was registered under temporary tags that were to expire Saturday, Hersman said. The NTSB is looking into the history of the sale of the bus, which was sold by a bus company in New York.
A man at Angel Tours in Houston declined to comment Friday. The company’s voicemail system was full Saturday and not accepting new messages, and no one answered Saturday at a listing for the company’s attorney.
“We’re in the middle of a very intense investigation,” attorney Keena Greyling told the Houston Chronicle, the newspaper reported Saturday on its Web site. “Because of that, we really can’t discuss anything further.”
Vu Pham, 35, of Houston, said his brother, sister-in-law, mother and 12-year-old nephew were on the bus. His brother, whose left leg has been paralyzed since he was a boy because of polio, remained in intensive care Saturday in a Sherman hospital, he said.
“We thought it would be better for him to get on the bus because it’s a far drive,” Pham said. “Now he keeps saying that he should have driven himself.”
It was the nation’s deadliest bus crash since 2004, when 15 people were killed in a wreck in Arkansas on their way to Mississippi’s casinos. In 2005, 23 people were killed near Dallas when a bus carrying nursing home residents away from Hurricane Rita caught fire in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
___
Associated Press writers Jeff Carlton and Danny Robbins in Dallas contributed to this report.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Several New Jersey teens injured in Utah bus crash
Date: 07/17/2008 06:18 PM
PANGUITCH, Utah (AP) _ A tour bus went off a state highway near Bryce Canyon National Park, landing upside down in a creek bed and catching fire.
The Utah Highway Patrol says several of the 47 New Jersey teenagers aboard the bus were taken to hospitals with minor injuries. The bus also was carrying a half-dozen chaperones from Laine, N.J.
Highway Patrol spokesman Cameron Roden says the teenagers were injured from the rollover, not the small fire that broke out on the bus.
The bus was headed through Red Canyon, a gateway to the national park, when it went off the road Thursday.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
PANGUITCH, Utah (AP) _ A tour bus went off a state highway near Bryce Canyon National Park, landing upside down in a creek bed and catching fire.
The Utah Highway Patrol says several of the 47 New Jersey teenagers aboard the bus were taken to hospitals with minor injuries. The bus also was carrying a half-dozen chaperones from Laine, N.J.
Highway Patrol spokesman Cameron Roden says the teenagers were injured from the rollover, not the small fire that broke out on the bus.
The bus was headed through Red Canyon, a gateway to the national park, when it went off the road Thursday.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Court finds Mitsubishi, 3 former execs guilty
Date: 07/15/2008 12:06 AM
By SHINO YUASA
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) _ A Japanese court on Tuesday found Mitsubishi Motors and three former executives guilty of falsifying a report to the government in a fatal accident suspected of being linked to a wheel defect.
The Tokyo High Court threw out a lower court decision in December 2006 that acquitted the three people, including Takashi Usami, former chairman of Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corp., the automaker’s truck division at that time.
At the center of the trial was whether the executives tried to hide a wheel defect suspected of being linked to the February 2002 accident. Shiho Okamoto, 29, was killed when a wheel rolled off a Mitsubishi truck and crushed her. Her two children were also injured in the accident.
A court official, speaking on condition of anonymity, citing court policy, said the higher court rejected the December 2006 decision by the Yokohama Summary Court that acquitted the three and the company.
Tuesday’s ruling slapped a 200,000 yen ($1,900) fine on each defendant, the maximum penalty for the charge under Japanese law.
Mitsubishi Motors said it accepted the ruling.
“We will do our utmost to regain consumer trust,” the Tokyo-based automaker said in a statement. The former executives did not immediately comment on the ruling.
Mitsubishi Motors stock dropped in morning trading Tuesday to 182 yen ($1.7), down 1.1 percent.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
By SHINO YUASA
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) _ A Japanese court on Tuesday found Mitsubishi Motors and three former executives guilty of falsifying a report to the government in a fatal accident suspected of being linked to a wheel defect.
The Tokyo High Court threw out a lower court decision in December 2006 that acquitted the three people, including Takashi Usami, former chairman of Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corp., the automaker’s truck division at that time.
At the center of the trial was whether the executives tried to hide a wheel defect suspected of being linked to the February 2002 accident. Shiho Okamoto, 29, was killed when a wheel rolled off a Mitsubishi truck and crushed her. Her two children were also injured in the accident.
A court official, speaking on condition of anonymity, citing court policy, said the higher court rejected the December 2006 decision by the Yokohama Summary Court that acquitted the three and the company.
Tuesday’s ruling slapped a 200,000 yen ($1,900) fine on each defendant, the maximum penalty for the charge under Japanese law.
Mitsubishi Motors said it accepted the ruling.
“We will do our utmost to regain consumer trust,” the Tokyo-based automaker said in a statement. The former executives did not immediately comment on the ruling.
Mitsubishi Motors stock dropped in morning trading Tuesday to 182 yen ($1.7), down 1.1 percent.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Another Kentucky Bus Wreck
In an odd string of coincidences, there have been a string of bus accidents recently with some connection to Kentucky. Last month it was a bus full of school kids on their way to church camp from Lexington, KY involved in a crash. A young boy in the other vehicle later died from his injuries.
Yesterday, an Illinois charter bus crashed near Bowling Green, Kentucky, off I-65. While the rash of school bus accidents which occupy this blog during the school year has of course quieted down with the summer vacation, it is charter buses, with a whole different group of issues that are making headlines. See the Bowling Green Daily News article at http://bgdailynews.com/articles/2008/07/06/multimedia/sound_slides/801crash.txt
With long charter trips, the issue of fatigue (especially when being driven by those who are not experienced over the road drivers) becomes a major issue. While there are strict rules (and somewhat reasonable compliance) for over-the-road truck drivers, these charter trips, often don’t comply with such rules. The drivers may be school bus drivers or volunteers. Fatigue is one of the most serious risk factors in all traffic situations as even if a driver doesn’t fall asleep, fatigue can affect them in similar ways as alcohol. See http://semi-accident.com/fatigue.html Fatigue is being investigated in Sunday’s wreck.
Yesterday, an Illinois charter bus crashed near Bowling Green, Kentucky, off I-65. While the rash of school bus accidents which occupy this blog during the school year has of course quieted down with the summer vacation, it is charter buses, with a whole different group of issues that are making headlines. See the Bowling Green Daily News article at http://bgdailynews.com/articles/2008/07/06/multimedia/sound_slides/801crash.txt
With long charter trips, the issue of fatigue (especially when being driven by those who are not experienced over the road drivers) becomes a major issue. While there are strict rules (and somewhat reasonable compliance) for over-the-road truck drivers, these charter trips, often don’t comply with such rules. The drivers may be school bus drivers or volunteers. Fatigue is one of the most serious risk factors in all traffic situations as even if a driver doesn’t fall asleep, fatigue can affect them in similar ways as alcohol. See http://semi-accident.com/fatigue.html Fatigue is being investigated in Sunday’s wreck.
Church Camp Caravan Crashes in Alabama
Twenty seven people were injured when a school bus collided with a pickup truck in Dothan Alabama on Sunday, June 29. The school bus was carrying grade school kids from Lexington, Kentucky to a church camp in Panama City, Fl. The pickup truck apparently hydroplaned on a wet road, colliding with the bus.
The most seriously injured individuals were the three occupants of the pickup truck, two of whom were in serious condition. The school bus passengers were all treated and released. For the full Associated Press story on the accident, click here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25448306/ The children were from the Centenary United Methodist Church in Lexington.
It is a common occurrence that the accidents involving buses, are actually caused by a vehicle other than the bus. When the other vehicle is owned by a private individual, often there is not enough insurance to compensate all those aboard the bus, for their medical bills and other injuries. However, the insurance on the other vehicle is not the only option for getting bills paid. First, the bus itself may have what is called “med pay” coverage, which will cover medical bills of the occupants of the bus, regardless of whose fault the accident is. Kentucky is a no-fault state, which would apply to the occupants of the bus, even though the accident happened in Alabama, because that is where the bus is insured. No fault in most states also provides additional benefits to occupants of the insured vehicle, than the direct claim against the wrongdoer.
The other comment we have on this accident is that as this bus in all likelihood was not equipped with seatbelts, there could be considerably more brain injuries among the school kids than might have been identified at the time of the crash. The symptoms of concussion can often be subtle, not manifesting themselves significantly until the day after the crash. What is important today and in the next few days is to monitor the kids for signs of confusion, amnesia and headache. See http://subtlebraininjury.com
We wish all on board get to camp safely and are able to enjoy their vacation without troubles.
The most seriously injured individuals were the three occupants of the pickup truck, two of whom were in serious condition. The school bus passengers were all treated and released. For the full Associated Press story on the accident, click here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25448306/ The children were from the Centenary United Methodist Church in Lexington.
It is a common occurrence that the accidents involving buses, are actually caused by a vehicle other than the bus. When the other vehicle is owned by a private individual, often there is not enough insurance to compensate all those aboard the bus, for their medical bills and other injuries. However, the insurance on the other vehicle is not the only option for getting bills paid. First, the bus itself may have what is called “med pay” coverage, which will cover medical bills of the occupants of the bus, regardless of whose fault the accident is. Kentucky is a no-fault state, which would apply to the occupants of the bus, even though the accident happened in Alabama, because that is where the bus is insured. No fault in most states also provides additional benefits to occupants of the insured vehicle, than the direct claim against the wrongdoer.
The other comment we have on this accident is that as this bus in all likelihood was not equipped with seatbelts, there could be considerably more brain injuries among the school kids than might have been identified at the time of the crash. The symptoms of concussion can often be subtle, not manifesting themselves significantly until the day after the crash. What is important today and in the next few days is to monitor the kids for signs of confusion, amnesia and headache. See http://subtlebraininjury.com
We wish all on board get to camp safely and are able to enjoy their vacation without troubles.
Northern Kentucky School Bus Fatality
It is a bad week for Kentucky truck drivers and school buses. Wednesday a semi-truck driven by a Kentucky man slammed into the back of a school bus in Waldo, Ohio, sending three children and the bus driver to the hospital. Thursday, a 16-year-old was killed near Williamstown, Kentucky when the school bus he was riding in had a collision with a dump truck. For the story from the Lexington Herald Leader on the Ohio crash, click here.
In the Kentucky crash, the dump truck crossed the centerline and struck the bus in the rear of the driver’s side. Speed is a potential factor in the Kentucky accident. The dump truck was hauling rock from the Butler Rock Quarry in Granite County, Kentucky. The driver, Fransico Youlfo of Grant County, drives for XXL Trucking, Inc., which is based in West Liberty, Ky. For the story from Northern Kentucky Enquirer on the Kentucky crash, click here.
See also the MSNBC TV report on the crash.
Yellow means caution. Sadly, that cautionary warning wasn’t enough for either of these Kentucky truck drivers. But we believe that to protect the children and other passengers on buses, more than just the color of the vehicle has to scream safety. Saving lives requires more than yellow paint.
Ten children were injured in the Kentucky accident. How many of these injuries could have been avoided if the bus had been equipped with the same safety features that are required on automobiles – air bags and seatbelts?
In the Kentucky crash, the dump truck crossed the centerline and struck the bus in the rear of the driver’s side. Speed is a potential factor in the Kentucky accident. The dump truck was hauling rock from the Butler Rock Quarry in Granite County, Kentucky. The driver, Fransico Youlfo of Grant County, drives for XXL Trucking, Inc., which is based in West Liberty, Ky. For the story from Northern Kentucky Enquirer on the Kentucky crash, click here.
See also the MSNBC TV report on the crash.
Yellow means caution. Sadly, that cautionary warning wasn’t enough for either of these Kentucky truck drivers. But we believe that to protect the children and other passengers on buses, more than just the color of the vehicle has to scream safety. Saving lives requires more than yellow paint.
Ten children were injured in the Kentucky accident. How many of these injuries could have been avoided if the bus had been equipped with the same safety features that are required on automobiles – air bags and seatbelts?
Bus Accident’s and Brain Injury
I am a brain injury lawyer. What does that mean? It means I primarily represent individuals who suffer brain injuries as a result of the wrongful conduct of others. I represent them in lawsuits to recover compensation against the wrongdoers of such conduct. To take a look at what this means in general terms, check out my web pages: http://tbilaw.com and http://subtlebraininjury.com. For more about me and my background, go to http://gordonjohnson.com.
Why is a brain injury lawyer blogging about bus accidents? Because one of the chief culprits in the medical community is how little attention they give to brain injury, and bus accidents have as much potential for brain injury as any civilian catastrophe as imaginable. Let me explain:
First, virtually no one in a bus is ever seat-belted. This is particularly true in school buses and in rental car buses. Second, sometimes people are even standing in buses, especially municipal buses, like on Chicago’s CTA. If there is a sudden stop or collision, none of the safety developments that have been created to safeguard occupants in automobiles, will protect the passengers on a bus. Even notice that most bus drivers are now required to fasten their seatbelt before they drive off? Why is no one requiring the same for the passengers?
Let’s further examine what we know about safety and contrast that to buses. First, the safest position in a car, is facing straight ahead, seat-belted, with an airbag and a headrest to reduce the whiplash forces in case of a wreck. Each of these elements is important to provide maximum safety. Now, think of a bus.
Facing straight ahead. We know that if an occupant is even looking to the right or the left at the time of a collision, this significantly increases the risk of injury, because it substantially increases rotational acceleration. For more on the biomechanics of brain injury go to http://subtlebraininjury.com/biomechanics1.html Well in a bus, not only are the occupants not necessarily looking straight ahead, they may actually being seated sideways. This is a guarantee that they will be exposed to more force.
Seatbelts. There must be a bus out there somewhere that has seatbelts on it, but it is not a bus I have ever ridden on. In fact, the school bus industry has been fighting the implementation of seatbelts for years. How can we tolerate such idiocy?
Airbags. Without seatbelts, there can be no airbags. Primarily, the seat belt protects the passenger from hitting their head or being thrown from the vehicle. It is the airbag that significantly reduces the whiplash forces to which a person is exposed in a motor vehicle collision. We can’t even demand airbags until we can insist that occupants are seated in a position from which they can be protected.
Not Everyone is Seated. Would you let your child stand on the back seat of a car, while you drove down the highway? Not if you were sane, not if you cared about the law and safety. Yet, a child standing on the back seat of a car, is far safer in my opinion, than anyone standing in a bus, or commuter train. Simply falling over in a sudden stop without a collision, is enough to cause a brain injury or concussion. But if the bus collides with something, or worse, rolls over, what is to keep the occupant from being thrown against something, or even outside the vehicle? Anyone thrown outside a vehicle is at far greater risk of injury or death. I could write for pages on this topic, but there is really only one answer as to why this occurs: greed.
What we must have happen for buses to become as safe as cars, is a change in the culture of greed. All bus seats should face forward. All bus seats should have seatbelts. All passengers on buses should be required to be seated. When the all bus seats are full, it is times for another bus. Each of these items will add to the cost of riding buses, and that is the reason they are not implemented. Yet, in a society which puts such a premium on safety on the roads, how can we tolerate allowing greed and profits to take precedence?
Why is a brain injury lawyer blogging about bus accidents? Because one of the chief culprits in the medical community is how little attention they give to brain injury, and bus accidents have as much potential for brain injury as any civilian catastrophe as imaginable. Let me explain:
First, virtually no one in a bus is ever seat-belted. This is particularly true in school buses and in rental car buses. Second, sometimes people are even standing in buses, especially municipal buses, like on Chicago’s CTA. If there is a sudden stop or collision, none of the safety developments that have been created to safeguard occupants in automobiles, will protect the passengers on a bus. Even notice that most bus drivers are now required to fasten their seatbelt before they drive off? Why is no one requiring the same for the passengers?
Let’s further examine what we know about safety and contrast that to buses. First, the safest position in a car, is facing straight ahead, seat-belted, with an airbag and a headrest to reduce the whiplash forces in case of a wreck. Each of these elements is important to provide maximum safety. Now, think of a bus.
Facing straight ahead. We know that if an occupant is even looking to the right or the left at the time of a collision, this significantly increases the risk of injury, because it substantially increases rotational acceleration. For more on the biomechanics of brain injury go to http://subtlebraininjury.com/biomechanics1.html Well in a bus, not only are the occupants not necessarily looking straight ahead, they may actually being seated sideways. This is a guarantee that they will be exposed to more force.
Seatbelts. There must be a bus out there somewhere that has seatbelts on it, but it is not a bus I have ever ridden on. In fact, the school bus industry has been fighting the implementation of seatbelts for years. How can we tolerate such idiocy?
Airbags. Without seatbelts, there can be no airbags. Primarily, the seat belt protects the passenger from hitting their head or being thrown from the vehicle. It is the airbag that significantly reduces the whiplash forces to which a person is exposed in a motor vehicle collision. We can’t even demand airbags until we can insist that occupants are seated in a position from which they can be protected.
Not Everyone is Seated. Would you let your child stand on the back seat of a car, while you drove down the highway? Not if you were sane, not if you cared about the law and safety. Yet, a child standing on the back seat of a car, is far safer in my opinion, than anyone standing in a bus, or commuter train. Simply falling over in a sudden stop without a collision, is enough to cause a brain injury or concussion. But if the bus collides with something, or worse, rolls over, what is to keep the occupant from being thrown against something, or even outside the vehicle? Anyone thrown outside a vehicle is at far greater risk of injury or death. I could write for pages on this topic, but there is really only one answer as to why this occurs: greed.
What we must have happen for buses to become as safe as cars, is a change in the culture of greed. All bus seats should face forward. All bus seats should have seatbelts. All passengers on buses should be required to be seated. When the all bus seats are full, it is times for another bus. Each of these items will add to the cost of riding buses, and that is the reason they are not implemented. Yet, in a society which puts such a premium on safety on the roads, how can we tolerate allowing greed and profits to take precedence?