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Highway Accident Brief: Frontal and Sideswipe Collision Between a School Bus and a Trash Truck on Columbia Pike, Arlington, Virginia, April 18, 2005

Shortly before 8:40 a.m., on Monday, April 18, 2005, a 52-passenger school bus was traveling westbound on Columbia Pike (State Route 244) in Arlington County, Virginia, transporting 15 elementary school children, grades pre-K through 5, to the nearby Hoffman-Boston Elementary School. On approaching the signaled intersection with Courthouse Road, the school bus driver began moving the bus into the left turn lane (from which it would turn south onto Courthouse Road) and slowed it nearly to a stop. As the driver turned the vehicle, its left front encroached slightly into the left lane of the eastbound side of Columbia Pike. The driver later stated that distractions inside the bus might have affected her driving at this time. She said her attention was drawn to a student standing on a seat and to a clipboard that fell to the floor at her driving station. About 8:40 a.m., a 2003 Mack trash truck was traveling with the flow of traffic in the left eastbound lane on Columbia Pike, at a speed one witness who was traveling on the road in the same direction estimated to be approximately 30 mph. The truck reached the intersection with Courthouse Road, continued through it on a green signal and, according to several witnesses, deviated slightly leftward from its lane toward the yellow centerline. The truck collided with the school bus; the impact involved the front-left corners of both vehicles and a sideswipe. During the collision, the school bus was pushed backward, but it remained in the left turn lane following the accident. The trash truck continued eastbound about 200 feet, crossed the right eastbound lane, jumped the right curb of Columbia Pike, and came to rest. One student died at the scene and one student died 3 days later in the hospital. The truck driver, school bus driver, and one student on the bus sustained serious injuries; four students sustained minor injuries; and the remaining eight students were uninjured. The bus driver, who had been wearing her seat belt, was ejected through the broken windshield when the shoulder portion of the belt was sheared in half. Emergency responders needed approximately 1 hour to extricate the trash truck driver from the truck cab because of his legs being trapped in the wreckage. The students who suffered the most severe injuries were seated behind the driver on the left side, near the front, of the bus. The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the school bus driver’s encroachment into the trash truck’s lane and the trash truck driver’s failure to maintain proper lane position, for undetermined reasons, causing the front-left sides of the two vehicles to collide and the vehicles to sideswipe each other.

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Web
  • Features: Figures; Tables;
  • Pagination: 18p

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01088779
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Report/Paper Numbers: NTSB/HAB-08/01, HWY-05-MH-023
  • Files: TRIS
  • Created Date: Feb 25 2008 2:36PM