There was a recent traffic accident where a FedEx truck crossed over into the oncoming traffic lane and a bus carrying a group of underprivileged high school students crashed into the FedEx truck resulting in 10 deaths.
Apparently, most of the dead were students and it seems there was no evidence of either driver trying to hit the brakes before the crash.
People still seem to be looking for the cause of this crash. My guess would be that one or both drivers lost control of their vehicles due to a heart attack or other medical condition.
In all the time since these kinds of accidents first occurred, has no one ever found any way to detect or prevent this kind of accident?
Seems to me that in all that time, it is very sad that nothing can be done to detect the cause of these kinds of crashes or to do anything to try and prevent them.
The NTSB is investigating this crash, and will determine the cause of the accident to the best of their ability, and issue recommendations for safety improvements.
You ask whether anyone has found a way to detect or prevent this kind of accident. This is a premature question, since we don’t know the cause yet. It could have been caused by a heart attack, or by a mechanical failure, or by the truck driver falling asleep, or by any number of other things.
The NTSB has already reported that there are skid marks indicating that the bus driver tried to avoid the collision, but there were no such skid marks from the FedEx truck.
Another interesting piece of information comes from a couple whose car the FedEx truck clipped before it hit the bus: they say the truck was on fire as it approached them (i.e. before it hit anything). The NTSB has not verified this.
One thing that would have prevented a head-on collision is a median barrier. This stretch of freeway doesn’t have one, so the truck was able to cross over into oncoming traffic without even slowing down.
Here’s a CNN article [Caution: autoplay video] which interviews the witnesses who saw the FedEx truck on fire. (Naturally, I’ll refrain from making any Rio jokes…)
It looks like the accident occurred in a rural area, where it’s typical to separate traffic with a center ditch approx. 10-15 yards wide. I can’t imagine that having a standard Jersey barrier could have helped, especially since accidents of this type are exceedingly rare.
Commercial drivers, such as would be at the wheel of a FedEx truck or a bus, are required to have regular health exams and meet certain standards of health.
Commercial vehicles are required to undergo inspections and have certain types of safety equipment.
Highways have lane separations and, in some cases (although not this one) median barriers.
So yes, there are attempts to prevent such accidents but I doubt such efforts will ever be perfect.
If they have built a median barrier one likely option is a wire barrier–and a large truck with so much mass might have gone through it.
If the driver had gone asleep at the wheel one possible reason could be a crazy schedule–switching from nights to days and back–lots of people have trouble adjusting to these.
One possibility that is suggested that buses need to meet higher safety standards:
A median barrier would seem to be an excellent measure and hopefully, in future, this kind of barrier or something equivalent will be part of future highways.
By “something equivalent”, I mean that traffic in one direction could be routed in a way that is separated from the traffic moving in another direction. It would make construction of highways more expensive. But hopefully, the day will come when the value of human life and health is seen as being worth the expense.
LiveFree: one point is there were no skid marks for the Fedex truck. If he were texting then at some point he would have noticed something going wrong and hit the brakes.
Highway 5 is not a rural area … a stretch of highway through rural towns yes, but Highway 5 is major thoroughfare stretching North from San Diego to the border in Seattle, Washington.
The center divide was about 53’ with federal rules stating anything over 50’ needs a barrier.
This was a tragic accident with the fickle finger of fate having the bus in question having already been a small fender bender in a Los Angels accident making the bus two hours behind schedule of the other bus with students that made it to the college they were applying for.
Haven’t driven I5 north of LA I see.
The vast majority of I5 north of LA is rural. So rural in fact that when the section through the Central Valley first opened there were worries people would run out of gas as the stations were so far apart.
Many freeways in urban areas have center barriers with no median at all. I suspect the thinking of the fifty-foot requirement is that if the lanes of traffic are well-separated, there is less need for a barrier.
As for the fire causing the brakes to fail - the NTSB hasn’t confirmed the couple’s story that the truck was on fire before the crash. If that turns out to be true, I’d be interested to know whether the truck was carrying anything flammable. There are rules about shipping dangerous cargo, but people break rules all the time.
Has anyone said what the FedEx truck was carrying? Was it something besides just routine deliveries? Sorry, I couldn’t make myself watch the video. What part of the truck was on fire–the cab or one/both of the trailers?
Those trucks pulling two trailers are REALLY scary. They must need at least half a mile to stop even if they DO apply the brakes under ideal conditions.
Last I’ve heard, the NTSB is saying the truck was probably NOT on fire before the crash, despite the statements of the witnesses. The investigation continues.
The California Department of Transportation says it would cost over a billion dollars to put median barriers throughout the interstate system in California. Their standard is to put in barriers in stretches of the highway where 50,000 vehicles pass a day. The area where this accident occurred has 25,000 vehicles a day.
I used to live in Orland. it has grown some since I lived there when I was a kid, but it’s still a small farming town.
In California, median barriers are installed where the location meets either a volume-width warrant, or a crash warrant. Neither a 50 ft width nor a 50,000 ADT are triggers for the first. I have no idea why that’s making the news rounds.
I’ll also note that unless specifically designed for it, median barriers aren’t designed to stop semis.
