Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Church bus crashes near Texas' Garner State Park; multiple fatalities confirmed

Wish every state had a law that" you got a cell in your hand" automatic 1000$ fine first time, next lose license!!!!!!!!Fugg em they are worse than drunks!!!!!

The NTSB reported most all, if not all, were wearing their seat belts.

Folks run around wetting their pants about some pretty far fetched schit but think nothing of getting behind the wheel.

Sad deal. Condolences to the families.

15 passenger vans have been death traps since they came out with them.

Given the number of lawsuits, I'm surprised they are still even being offered for sale.

So it's the vans fault?

Did you guys see the video the guy driving behind him shot? It was on the news. The caller was begging the cops to get him off the road, said he was gonna kill someone, and was all over the road. And he was. Multiple times, all the way across the line, all the way over in the oncoming lane, before the wreck.

It's one thing to momentarily lose your focus and wander in your lane but this guy just didn't give a flying f***.

Around here so many people are texting while they drive you'd think it was a requirement.

Did I say that?

There's two factors in this wreck.

The first is the culpability of what caused the wreck. That's obviously the idiot driving the dually.

The second is the history of 15 passenger vans as being unsafe.

Truckers shouldn't be allowed to have a cell phone in the cab.
I see them constantly weaving their big rig all over I-25.
Having one in the cabin with the motor running should be an automatic suspension of their CDL.

Agreed!

This isn't the type of van that's caused that problem. The bad ones are the regular vans like the one in this photo with the extension to add another row of seats. The added weight and length messes up the balance and makes them unstable. They weren't engineered for the extension.
This church bus was designed as a real bus.

Those conversion vans start with a base factory van. Same physics involved.

The accident and subsequent fatalities were entirely the fault of the young man texting and drive on a winding Hill Country road. He wasn't just momentarily distracted. He had been doing it for miles, swerving all over the road and sufficiently alarming two other vehicles on the highway that they called for law enforcement assistance.

He may very well otherwise be a good kid, but he was a stupid and criminally negligent driver.

The bus driver took evasive action, but because of the guard rail, he ran out of room. The bus did not fail. The young man in the truck failed to control his vehicle-- and he killed 13 people.

I agree totally that the driver of the truck caused the accident. His fault.

I do not agree that the bus didn't fail though.

Here's why.

The Dodge dually and the bus had the exact head-on impact in the wreck. That's a fact.

But the driver wasn't injured that badly.

On the other hand, 13 of the 14 passengers in the bus were killed.

Federal law even prohibits the use of those type vehicles for school age children.

Now, you get a phone call that tells you a family member is going to be involved in a head on accident in one hour. You can choose which vehicle she rides in. Would you choose the church van, or the pickup?

I'm not trying to be totally argumentative here, but to say the "bus didn't fail" is a pretty qualified expert legal opinion.

Where would a lawyer go on behalf of the ones killed in the accident? My guess is they will sue the pickup driver to the extent of his liability. (which ain't much in a wreck like this)... AND he will sue the manufacturer/conversion company that built the church van.

Well, we'll just have to disagree on this one--it's not the first time.

We're really not disagreeing on who is at fault in this wreck. That's totally at the feet of the guy that hit the van.

I'm just saying there may be some issues with the safety of the van.

Remember the Ford Pintos that would explode when rear ended because the gas tank ruptured? Many were burned alive?

Of course the driver that rear ended the Pinto is at fault for the accident. But Ford was on the hook for a liability issue too.

I damn sure wasn't taking the pickup driver's side in this, at all, whatsoever.

After watching the video, it wouldn't surprise me if he wasn't texting at all, but was just drunk on his ass. It doesn't make sense that texting would cause him to drive that way for a few miles, and someone who's texting and causes a wreck doesn't blurt out "I was texting" as the first thing out of his mouth.

On the other hand, if he was drunk, he might say that.

The kid that hit them is 20 years old. The youngest passenger in the bus was over 60 and a few of the passengers were over 80. They are much more susceptible to significant internal injuries

STFU about the bus having any impact on this whatsoever!

Yeah, I'll let you tell me what to STFU about....

Not!

But you win.

Ford Econoline van issues played no part in anything.

Minibus rollover issue wasn't the cause of the wreck, texting driver negligence was. Why the focus on minibus/van rollover issues?Why the diversion off the real cause of the accident and loss of life?