Bus crash causes reexamined

WASHINGTON—A drug-impaired pickup truck driver was the primary factor in a 2017 Texas church shuttle bus collision that killed 13 people, the National Transportation Safety Board has found. A secondary probable cause for some of the fatalities was the lack of shoulder belts in the medium-sized bus.

Among the board actions resulting from the investigation is a recommendation that the National Highway Transportation Administration adopt lap and shoulder belt regulations for buses weighing 10,000 to 26,000 pounds. Such regulations already apply to larger buses and motorcoaches.

The NTSB staff said during the Oct. 16 hearing that it has been making that recommendation since 2010, but the NHTSA has found that the requirement would not be cost-effective.

 

Nearly head-on

A 2004 Ford E350 Turtle Top Van Terra was traveling north on U.S. 83 near Concan, Tex., on March 29, 2017. A 66-year-old driver was returning 13 passengers to First Baptist Church of New Braunfels, Tex., from a retreat center, according to the NTSB staff report.

As the bus rounded a curve at 60 to 62 mph, it was struck by an oncoming 2007 Dodge Ram 3500 quad-cab dually that crossed the center line at an estimated 69 mph. The speed limit was 70 mph.

The truck’s front bumper over-rode the bus bumper. The truck intruded five feet into the bus. The bus driver and 12 passengers were killed. One bus passenger and the truck driver were seriously injured.

The passenger of a car following the Dodge truck recorded 14 minutes of video that showed the truck leaving its lane 56 times before the collision. That passenger had called the sheriff’s department and a deputy was en route.

Prescription medications and a tin containing marijuana cigarettes were found in the truck. Toxicology tests determined that the truck driver was impaired by clonazepam, which can cause drowsiness. He had been prescribed this drug but had taken a double-dose an hour before the crash. The tests also found evidence of marijuana use.

The truck’s driver, Jack Dillon Young, pleaded no contest in May to charges including intoxication manslaughter. He is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 7 in Uvalde, Tex., and could receive up to 270 years in prison.

Much of the NTSB report, findings and recommendations addressed the detection and reduction of impaired driving. The board stressed a second safety issue: medium-sized bus seatbelts.

 

“Flailing” injuries

Occupants of the first two rows of passenger seats suffered fatal blunt trauma injuries from the pickup’s intrusion, investigators found. Six of the seven passengers seated in the rear two rows, behind the intrusion zone, also died. All were wearing lap belts, which had been installed as optional equipment.

“Behind the intrusion zone there was survivable space,” survival factors investigator Ronald Kaminski told the board. “The occupants seated in the back two rows of the sustained multiple injuries in their neck, head, abdomen and pelvis. These passengers had evidence of injuries from upper-body flailing.”

Flailing injuries occur, he said, when the unrestrained upper body continues to react to deceleration forces during a collision.

“Research has determined that lap/shoulder belts provide a greater restraint for the upper body and distribute the load over a larger surface area,” Kaminski said. “Occupants wearing lap belts would have fared substantially better if they had been wearing lap and shoulder belts.”

The investigation also found that seat belt anchorages for the four seats in the last row were separated by only 6.5 inches. This is allowed by current Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, Kaminski said.

However, he added, “The [NTSB] staff does not believe this is adequate for most occupants. The narrow anchorage points caused a pinching and scissoring action of the belt webbing on the abdomen and pelvis, resulting in extensive injuries.”

One of the rear-row passengers who died suffered “near complete transection of trunk at lower abdomen and back,” according to autopsy findings. The rear-row passenger who survived sustained multiple fractures of the pelvis, right arm and left leg.

 

Rulemaking recommended

The NTSB has been recommending lap and shoulder belt regulations for mid-sized buses since a 2009 accident in which the driver of a 29-passenger bus lost control near Dolan Springs, Ariz.  The bus, not equipped with safety belts, overturned and came to rest with 15 of 17 occupants fully or partially ejected. Seven died.

The occupant protection recommendation to NHTSA from that accident is still listed in the NTSB files as “Open-Unacceptable Response.”

“Occupants on medium-sized buses deserve the same level of protection as passengers on motorcoaches, large buses and smaller passenger vehicles,” Kaminski said.

In 2016, NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind responded to the NTSB: “The agency did not expand the applicability of these rulemaking actions to buses with GVWRs between 10,000 and 26,000 pounds because development of a regulation for these buses was not found to be cost beneficial. We intend no further action on this Safety Recommendation and request that this Safety Recommendation be closed.”

A portion of the Concan accident report placed the current U.S. sales for medium-sized buses at nearly $16,000 annually. Kaminski estimated the cost of upgrading a lap belt to a lap/shoulder combination at $20 per seat.

“Since timely regulations requiring lap and shoulder belts are unlikely anytime soon, the staff is proposing a recommendation calling on medium-size bus manufacturers and seat manufacturers to install lap and shoulder bets at all seating positions as standard rather than optional equipment in all newly manufactured buses,” he said.

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