Posts tagged "bus accidents"

Many parents who send their children to preschool rely on their school's transportation options, including school buses and vans. Although it can be a bit scary waving goodbye to their little ones for the first time, most parents are happy to avoid the extra hassle of a pickup and drop-off every day on their way to and from work. And in the case of preschool programs that benefit low-income families, such as Head Start, that transportation is even more valuable, especially for families who don't own a car.

All parents who rely on this bus transportation presume that their children will be kept safe from harm as they travel to and from school. But a recent accident in the Cincinnati area has left two children dead, others injured and the victims' families at a complete loss.

It seems that there is another with fatal accident involving heavy commercial vehicles in Ohio every week. However, the recent bus accidents and truck accidents around the country have been unusually severe, often involving multiple injury victims and fatalities.

Just yesterday, a tour bus carrying about 50 people collided with a tractor-trailer, causing both vehicles to be engulfed in flames. Of the people on the bus, 46 were taken to the hospital and 30 people sustained injuries. The driver of the tractor-trailer was killed at the scene of the accident.

Several recent bus and truck accidents in Ohio and across the country have drawn the attention of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) who summoned members of the bus and trucking industries to a meeting to discuss what can be done to improve highway and road safety.

Although federal regulators have been focused on trucking accidents for many years, bus safety has become an increased cause for of concern since a fatal bus accident claimed the lives of 15 passengers when a bus drove off an elevated highway in March. Accident reports indicated that driver fatigue might have been a factor in that fatal accident.

Parents have the right to expect that the school buses that transport their children be extremely safe vehicles. School buses are designed to minimize the possibility of injury to children in the event of an accident. Bus designers use compartmentalization in designing school buses, so child passengers are seated in a padded environment. Despite the relative safety of school buses, children can still be injured in school bus accidents.

Despite the best efforts of bus designers to prevent school bus injuries, there is no substitute for safe and responsible driving. A recent Cincinnati traffic accident in which a school bus rear-ended a car resulted in one child being injured. The child, who received a minor injury, was brought to a local hospital for treatment. Two other children were also sent to the hospital, where they were checked and released.

At about 11 p.m. Tuesday evening, a bus carrying 28 passengers traveled on Route 30. The passengers included wrestlers, coaches and athletic trainers from the University of Mount Union. The group was returning home from a wrestling match against Ohio Northern University in Ada when the bus driver attempted to pass a snowplow.

Snowplows tend to travel at speeds well below the posted speed limits and although it is not illegal to pass a snowplow, safety officials strongly recommend against it and they believe it is very dangerous to do so. As the bus attempted to pass the snowplow on the right, a wing blade on the right side of the plow sliced into the left side of the bus, according to a dispatcher at the Highway Patrol's Bucyrus post.