Thirty passengers on a tour bus narrowly escaped injuries when their bus tipped over near Whitney Point, New York last month. The accident coincides with the National Transportation Safety Board’s new recommendations for programs to prevent rollover accidents involving commercial trucks and buses.
The bus that crashed was carrying a group of tourists from Poland. The bus overturned on a rain slicked Interstate 81. There were no fatalities, but nineteen people were injured seriously enough to be taken to the hospital. One woman suffered critical injuries when she was trapped underneath the bus. According to police, the rollover was likely the result of driving too fast for existing weather conditions.
It was last month that the National Transportation Safety Board released the findings of an investigation into a tanker truck accident in Indiana. In that accident, the tanker truck had flipped over, setting off a massive explosion. The National Transportation Safety Board has now recommended that the FMCSA and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration develop a comprehensive program aimed at preventing rollover accidents involving commercial trucks and buses.
The NTSB has now recommended that the program include new standards for the design of cargo tanks in order to prevent rollover accidents. It should also include the installation of stability control systems on commercial trucks and buses. Stability control systems have been used with great effect to reduce the risk of rollovers in automobiles. Similar systems are available for use in commercial trucks, but these are not mandated by the federal administration. The NHTSA estimates that mandatory stability control could prevent as many as 3,600 rollover accidents every year.
The New York truck accident lawyers> at Godosky and Gentile represent persons injured in truck and tractor trailer accidents across the state of New York.