School Bus/Dump Truck Collision-I-80 Near Mount Olive,New Jersey

Am I the only one who thinks the school bus drifted into the median and took the guardrail head-on at speed? The force of the impact sheared the body off and imparted a left rotation on the body and a right rotation on the chassis (from the offset impact on the chassis) and the chassis swinging out 90 degrees collected the front of the dump truck?

Brian it didn't occur to me that the body shear was an intentional design weakness, but it makes sense. I've never been a fan of crumple zones from a design standpoint but when the objective is to mitigate force, it makes sense.

I mean that dump truck may have lost his hood but it looks like it made a controlled stop out of the way. Unlike the bus that hit something solid.

Also the big losers will be the district tax payers. The lawyers will tie this up in court for years filing motion after motion and billing the whole time, then when a settlement is reached they just cut a check from the school budget and cut back on sports or music programs. But few will be heals personally accountable.

 

Infosaur, yes it could appear that the bus hit the center guide rail, except the bus came to rest on the eastbound side of I-80 and the dump truck is in the left lane of the westbound side. Combine that with the primary impact on the bus being the left rear quarter and it makes sense that the bus was attempting a U-turn and was clipped by the dump truck at speed. I think it just happened that the nose of the bus made contact with the guide rails during the resulting spin.

The exit the bus should have taken is visible in the pictures, the acceleration lane is for exit 25. I think the driver panicked and tried the crossover rather then going the 6 miles to the next exit.

Supposedly the NJ DOT has a video of the bus making the illegal u-turn, on the local news it is rumored that all 3 buses made the turn. I doubt that, otherwise the other 2 buses would have stopped as soon as this bus was hit rather than continuing on to their destination and beginning the tour.

 

Yeah, the two stories I saw didn't have very good pictures of where all the vehicles came to rest.

What moron thinks they can use that u-turn pull out?

 

Trump could not be more clear as he specifically referred to MS 13. The media does not like him.

Did you see the In God We Trust motto on the back of that red dump truck? Looks like sand in the bin. call it 10 ton. Not too heavy.

 

You and I agree on something.

What I can try to suggest to you is to breathe and get into something nice to stay calm. It's not always good to get worked over something which you may or may not be able to do something about.

Hang in there.

 

News reports the school bus made an illegal U-turn on the interstate.

 

Lowest bidder gets the contract.
Low bids = low standards.

 

BS. Truck drivers will be under the gun either way. Remember the wreck that led to the cell phone ban?

 

Ummm that's what I tried to say. But was also trying to say that since this was a major f up by a government entity, it will be swept under the rug by the media ... nothing to see here.