Department of Transportation Adopts Bus Safety Plan after Series of Accidents

November 18th, 2009

California bus accident lawyers have been concerned about motor coach safety in the wake of a recent series of accidents, including a tour bus accident and a casino bus crash in California.

Earlier this year, a bus carrying elderly people to the Colusa County Casino, fell into a ditch about 60 miles off Sacramento.  Eleven people were killed in the accident, and several people were injured very seriously. Soon after, a tour bus carrying French tourists flipped over in Soledad, killing four people including the driver and injuring several others. Now, the Department of Transportation has adopted a safety plan to minimize the number of bus accidents and reduce the severity of injuries in these accidents. The program is called the Motorcoach Safety Action Plan.

According to the plan, the Department of Transportation will follow an integrated strategy that will include addressing a wide range of safety problems that contribute to these accidents. These safety issues include

  • Driver fatigue that contributes to driving errors
  • Distracted driving
  • Health and medical condition of the driver
  • Driver experience
  • Use of crash avoidance technologies
  • Bus maintenance
  • Compliance with safety rules
  • Safety measures to minimize injuries in crashes like seatbelts, fire safety, and roof strength.

The Department of Transportation hopes that this multi-pronged strategy will contribute to lowering accident rates, as well as lowering the injury risk from these accidents

According to DOT data, driver fatigue, rollovers, passenger ejections, and maintenance issues are the most frequent contributors to bus accident fatalities and injuries. Based on these factors, the Department of Transportation has identified 7 safety actions that it will focus on to reduce accidents, number of fatalities and severity of injuries. The priority actions include:

  • Requiring electronic onboard recording devices on motor coaches to record the number of hours drivers operate these vehicles, and reduce the risk of crashes caused by driver fatigue
  • Ban on the use of cell phones and other electronic communication devices by the bus operator.
  • Mandating the installation of seatbelts on motor coaches to minimize the risk of serious ejections and injuries
  • Developing roof crush performance standards to increase roof strength requirements and prevent injuries from roof crush and collapse.
  • Assessment of safety benefits of stability control systems on motor coaches to reduce the risk of rollover accidents
  • Increasing oversight of bus carriers to root out carriers attempting to avoid sanctions
  • Establishing basic requirements for people applying for motor coach permits

According to the NHTSA, there are approximately 3,900 motor coach companies in the country that operate close to 34,000 vehicles. These transport 750 million passengers every year, who are at risk of serious injuries in accidents if federal safety standards are not met. According to the NHTSA statistics there were more than 10 fatalities from bus accidents in 1998, 1999, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2008. Of these, the fatalities in 1999, 2004 and 2005 resulted from a single accident that caused a large number of deaths. For instance in 2008, there were 41 bus accident fatalities and these were caused in three serious accidents, including the Colusa country Casino bus accident near Williams in California that killed 9 people, the Sherman, Texas bus accident that killed 17 people and the Utah rollover accident that killed 9 passengers. These numbers show that while bus accidents may be comparatively infrequent, when they do occur, they lead to a high number of fatalities or serious injuries.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of <a href=”http://www.robertreeveslaw.com/california/aviation-accidents.html”>aviation accidents</a>. Please visit our website at <a href=”http://www.trlglaw.com/”>trlglaw.com</a>. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or <a href=”http://robertreeveslaw.com/contact-us/”>email us</a>.
The Reeves Law Group is not acting as legal counsel for any party in the matters discussed in this posting.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of bus accidents. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.

The Reeves Law Group is not acting as legal counsel for any party in the matters discussed in this posting.

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