HIGHWAY ACCIDENT BRIEF: SCHOOL BUS RUN-OFF-THE-ROAD AND ROLLOVER, NEAR GANADO, ARIZONA, NOVEMBER 3, 2000

On November 3, 2000, a school-activity bus carrying a driver and 37 passengers was traveling southbound on U.S. Route 191 in Arizona. The lanes of the highway were bordered by 2-foot-wide unpaved shoulders. The southbound shoulder had a 12-percent downgrade slope starting at the roadway edge. As the bus was entering a 744-foot-long, 2-degree left curve, the bus driver was distracted by a snack bag slipping off the dashboard. The bus's right front tire left the roadway and the driver steered to the right to avoid a post adjacent to the highway. The bus leaned to the right on the slope descending from the right side. As the bus inclined to the right, the driver's body slid and tilted to the right. As he tried to regain control, the driver's foot slipped and inadvertently pressed the accelerator pedal to full throttle. The bus driver stated that the shoulder was soft and steep and that the softness caused the bus to roll over. The bus traveled about 100 feet while overturning 1 l/4 turns. A chaperone and a student were partially ejected through broken windows on the right side and sustained fatal and serious injuries, respectively. Another student was seriously injured; the other occupants of the bus received minor injuries. Deformation of the bus interior was primarily confined to the roof and right side. The bus exterior sustained impact damage on the right side and the adjacent roof. On the left side, the most significant damage was below the floor area adjacent to the left-side emergency exit door. The rear emergency roof hatch was sheared off along the hinge line. The front emergency roof hatch was compressed downward, and the hinge was damaged along the hinge line and hatch frame. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause of this accident was the driver's distraction, as he tried to prevent an object from falling off the dashboard. Contributing to the severity of the accident was the lack of a sufficient shoulder area adjacent to the roadway, which might have enabled the driver to recover control of the bus.

• Record URL:
  • http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HAB0205.pdf
• 
• Corporate Authors:

  National Transportation Safety Board

  Bureau of Accident Investigation, 800 Independence Avenue, SW
  Washington, DC  United States  20594
• Publication Date: 2002-8-21

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Photos;
• Pagination: 4 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bus crashes; Crash causes; Crash investigation; Distraction; Driver errors; Fatalities; Injuries; Ran off road crashes; Road shoulders; Rollover crashes; School bus drivers; School bus passengers; School buses; Single vehicle crashes
• Geographic Terms: Arizona
• Subject Areas: Highways; Passenger Transportation; Public Transportation; Safety and Human Factors; I80: Accident Studies; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00943544
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: HWY-01-FH006,, NTSB/HAB-02/05
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jun 13 2003 12:00AM