Nor Cal Bus Crash
 

When the Fedex semi hit head on into the tour bus, the bus was immediately engulfed in flames. Someone needs to answer "why" in order to protect passengers in the future.

The US learned the hard way at the beginning of WWII that sending soldiers out in gasoline powered tanks etc resulted in horrific deaths from fire that could have otherwise be avoided if diesel was used.

I wonder if "green" peons to the AQMD by the bus company had anything to do with this? Did the bus burn diesel, or CNG, Propane, gasoline?

So sad for the victims and their families - God bless them.

Local news is reporting that the truck was burning prior to impact.

Horrible.

I stress every time my kids go on a field trip or to and from camp.

Sad

The bus was a typical tour bus, diesel powered and rear engined. The fuel tanks on these types of coaches are middle to rear of the sides of the chassis (no where near the front). They are a unibody construction and the tank(s) are enclosed within the body. Local buses are often CNG/LNG but over-the-road tour buses are not due to spotty filling stations.

Something to point out... Many of the people in the bus reported beating on windows and breaking windows to escape. Nearly every side window on this type of coach is an emergency exit. Lift the lever (marked with lettering or lever itself is red), push the window- get out NOW. There are also emergency roof exits.

Not saying this contributed to any deaths, just suggesting that when you sit in a commercial bus, you look at the window and KNOW if it is an emergency escape and how to use it. It could save your life.

angela

My biggest concern is the double trailer trucks. Those things scare me. The animation on TV was a FedEx double trailer. I don't know if that is accurate or not. It was just the TV news.

It was a set of doubles. Lot of investigation to be done on this with questions regarding the passenger car involved, etc. The obvious problem is crossing the center median and entering oncoming lanes, but WHY? Medical problem? Or did something happen that caused the Fed-Ex driver to take a violent swerve?

No idea how this will play out. Prayers to those impacted and their families...

angela

Sad story all around.



In some states, they run triple trailers.

As the supervisor of CDL drivers, situations like this will be brought up in our next safety meeting.

If the Fedex truck was already on fire then my theory is wrong.

I am also assuming the tractor on the semi was diesel, so I wonder if maybe his brakes could have ignited?

You just don't very often have fires like that. I have commuted in So Cal for decades, and short of an engine or electrical fire - which are almost always very slow to progress - you just seldom hear of such horrific burnings. Horrible accidents yes - but if not killed on impact, most get out in time. This one seems to have ignited immediately.

FWIW - just speculation on my part. I have not training in any of this.

I don't think the driver of the big rig fell asleep. The median in this area is very wide with a slope on both sides for drainage. If his rig was on fire he might have been passed out before impact. Time will tell.

Something very unusual happened but it had nothing to do with air quality regulations or other such nonsense.

Though it was an excellent combination of "won't someone think of the children?!?!" combined with a swipe at the "green" crowd.

Terrible tragedy, and especially horrific for the parents of the kids. God speed.

The FedEx truck was in flames before it crossed the center divider and collided with the bus. I think that it's pretty safe to say that the big fire was the truck's fuel, (diesel), until it ignited the bus's fuel, also diesel.

The irony of the OP is that there are huge safety problems in the motor coach industry, ( tour busses), that will only be solved with a lot more regulation and oversight. Not necessarily this particular bus operator, (they might have maintained their equipment to a "T"), but in general it's a scumbag industry with major safety and equipment violations being the norm. Horrendous crashes are very commonplace due to faulty brakes, overworked drivers, etc.

If it's left to that industry to police itself, most will run bald tires and unserviced brakes with some meth smoking monkey behind the wheel.

So yeah, excessive govt. regulation is clearly the problem.

Ignorance, like rust, never sleeps.

I didn't know any of them but some of the kids are/were local to me :(

I believe Dennis is correct about the tour bus industry (from what I have heard)

However no amount of tour bus regulation is going to save you if a Semi crosses over and hits you head on.

Before we go demanding and mandating regulations, perhaps we should first figure out what happened.

Condolences to the dead and their families & friends.

The tour bus industry needs serious regulation and oversight. It has nothing to do with this particular crash.

Have to wonder if cargo in the Fed Ex truck ignited.....

If the cargo/trailer caught on fire, I would think that the driver could have pulled to the side of the road and got the fk out if the cab.

I think if the tour bus industry becomes less safe that's a legitimate concern - whether carrying children OR adults. I know many busses have switched to compressed gases, but I am not knowledgeable in that area and wonder if it there is a safety issue.

I know the AQMD is also after diesel. Gas is not as safe as diesel, and when you have that many people being transported and confined in one vehicle, I think it's a legitimate question. I didn't think I was being anti-anyting. I am for clean air - but not at any cost. And if you look at the bus company's web page, count the references to how "green" they are.

How did the FedEx truck catch fire?

Good question. Brakes?

At this point, any news is mostly speculation, so it's tough to say. Trucks seldom go down the road on fire but I'm sure it can happen.

Hey Speeder, are you a ass**** in real life like you are on here? I happen to be one of those drivers behind the wheel, and you owe me and all the other professional drivers an apology. I happen to have taken many groups just like this one, kids who don't have much hope of ever attending any of the schools we visit, but they have hope and get to see the other side.I happen to work for one of the best around, with perfect records from all agencies. We get inspected each year by the State Police, have our logs and maintanence records gone over 3 times a year, and so far without ANY violations. We don't use retreads, we are well rested, and nobody has been injured as long as I go back, 7 years. So before you go making unfounded remarks where you know squat, think twice about it. THIS bus driver was guilty of one thing: being in the wrong place.

From Denis's local perspective he's not entirely incorrect.

I believe he was referring to a different segment of your industry.

Out on Long Island we had similar experiences with the Atlantic City and Connecticut casino tour operators.

Tour bus safety: Casinos look the other way, regulators overwhelmed | 89.3 KPCC

I'm glad that your busses are well-maintained and that you run a safe operation but you really need to learn to read. My remark, that you obviously misunderstood, was not referring to bus operators. It was referring to the idea that somehow the CA. AQMD or the EPA was responsible for this crash. That's a preposterous, off-the-wall remark that's really out in left field and ignorant, IMO. If someone suggested that in my presence, I would let them know how wrong and not bright it was.

When reading these printed discussions, it helps to read the posts immediately proceeding the one you are about to quote and make a personal attack over. There are things known as "context", preamble and so on that can help you to understand what's actually being said about what. My first knee-jerk reaction was to tell you to go fk yourself but I decided that we could make this a teachable moment. :)

And i agree, (said it above), that the bus driver does not seem to be even 5% at fault in this one. He was truly in the wrong place at the right time. It's a shame that it could not have been a Sheriff's bus full of child molesters on their way to San Quentin but life rarely works out that way.

I meant to quote post #12, not the one I did. It sure looked to me, you were trashing our industry, "meth smoking monkeys? No?

I apologize for the "meth smoking monkeys" remark. That was uncalled for. There are some less than stellar people driving tour busses out here, though. Many of the companies are based just south of the U.S. border in TJ and their standards and regulations are a bit different than ours.

I've read about some real problems on the east coast as well, mostly tour bus companies that take Chinese immigrants from Chinatown in NYC to casinos up and down the coast. There have been some pretty horrific crashes.

If you are in that industry and run a clean business and play by the rules, I commend you. I really mean it.

Speeder - you need to read. I was not suggesting regulators were responsible for the crash, I was asking if the resulting fire was caused by a need to be green.

There was a charter bus accident recently in which the driver of one bus swerved to miss a couch lying in the middle of the interstate, and he lost control and/or swerved into something else he didn't know was in the next lane and sent it and/or himself across the median and head-on into something and killed a few people.

I know the first question for many is "what was a couch doing on the interstate?" but my first thought was "how poor was this guy's thought process or training that he thought the best course of action was to swerve the bus to miss the couch?"

Either he didn't have time to check his mirrors or he had no idea what go could wrong by swerving to miss something at interstate speed.

I'm not a trained bus driver, but my first reaction to seeing a couch in front of me at that speed is to just hit it if I didn't have time to check my mirrors and change lanes without losing control. I can't imagine that a bus hitting a couch would endanger the passengers.

Of course, that opinion is from not having seen the couch. Maybe it was a huge length of one of those giant conversation pits and the guy thought it might launch the bus or make it roll. But I'd still just brake evenly and hit it if I were driving.

I once encountered a recliner in the left lane of the LIE while at speed in my RX7.

Had a cramp in my sphincter for the next hour.