When parents in Tennessee and any other state in the U.S. put their children on a bus, be it a school bus or a commercial passenger bus, they expect their loved ones to be transported safely by properly trained drivers. When drivers and bus companies violate that trust, they can be held accountable through lawsuits and federal safety regulators.
Another passenger bus injury, this one filled with 42 people, recently occurred in a state on the East Coast. One high school-aged student who was on the bus was heading back to her home city after visiting an Ivy League school. The accident occurred when the bus driver took his eyes off the road to check a GPS navigation device when the bus crashed into an overpass.
In all, 35 people were injured in the accident. A handful of those injured had to be hospitalized. According to police, the road that the bus was on had a 10-foot height restriction, meaning that the bus shouldn’t have been on the road in the first place.
Police have said the driver will be cited for violating height restrictions on the road, and that a further investigation could lead to more charges. Police will likely try to determine whether the driver had been behind the wheel for too long.
Federal safety regulators have been cracking down on bus companies that haven’t been taking safety as seriously as they should have. One parent recalled the horror of the phone call she received from her injured daughter in the aftermath of the crash. No parent should have to go through that. In addition to the driver, the bus company could also be brought to justice for the driver’s actions.
Source: Associated Press, “After visiting Harvard, dozens in Pa. high school group injured when bus hits overpass,” Feb. 4, 2013