Almost three years to the day after an crash that sent school bus safety into the national spotlight and federal crosshairs, the National Transportation Safety Board released its final report on the Huntsville, Ala., school bus crash, citing the probable cause as a loss of control of a student-driven vehicle.
According to the report, the Nov. 20, 2006 crash, which resulted in the death of four high school passengers, was caused when one of their classmates who was driving a Toyota Celica driven lost control while attempting to overtake the Huntsville City school bus around a highway curve. The crash severity was enhanced by the Toyota impeding the “trajectory of the school bus away from the Interstate 565 bridge rail...which resulted in the bus overriding the rail and falling 30 feet...to the ground,” the report concluded.
Although not listed as a cause of the resulting crash over the bridge railing, the fact that the bus driver was ejected and was not wearing his seat belt was also included in the NTSB’s report. Blood and urine samples taken from the driver also showed no alcohol in his system but that he had consumed marijuana at some point during the week before.
Testing performed by school bus manufacturer IC Bus determined that a manual push force of 52 pounds would have been required to open the school bus bifolding doors, which the 340-pound, 6-foot 2-inch driver was ejected through before the bus left the roadway. Sources close to the investigation have said the school bus would never have left the highway if the bus driver had been buckled in per state regulations.
Last November, the families of the four Lee High School students killed in the crash settled their lawsuits with Laidlaw Transit Inc., bus driver Anthony Scott and Tony Williams, the student who was driving the Toyota involved in the crash. In June 2009, a judge has dismissed a suit against the designers and builders of the Interstate 565 bridge.