Bus Crash on I-35 Injures All 21 Passengers on Board

Bus company has had past problems: kxan.com

Early Friday morning, a bus headed to Dallas rolled over on northbound I-35 between Austin and San Antonio. The bus was owned and operated by Mares Bus Lines Inc., a Dallas-based company. Twenty-one passengers, including the driver, were on the bus when the accident occurred.

All 21 passengers were sent to local hospitals with injuries, some life-threatening. Most of the passengers were headed from Mexico to a final destination of Chicago, with a stop in Dallas.

Investigators are not sure why the driver lost control of the bus, but police say that eyewitnesses saw the bus veer off the road and overcorrect, causing the bus to roll and skid down the interstate. A mechanical failure in the bus was not found.

One of the passengers on board was a four year-old girl who had to have one of her legs amputated above the knee because of the injuries she sustained. Dr. Christian Ziebell of Dell Children's Hospital commented that the injuries seen from Friday's crash are "common on tour buses like that when people are not belted in."

Recently, U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas proposed a bill that would require all buses to have seat belts. The bill has not yet come up for a vote, but crashes like this one show the need for seat belts in buses, especially since this form of travel is becoming more popular with high gas prices and increasing airline fees.

Mares Bus Lines Inc. has 13 drivers and nine buses. The driver of the bus headed to Dallas did not have past violations or citations, but the company has received several violations within the past few years, including five violations for unsafe driving and 12 violations for driver fatigue. Two of the company's drivers had been cited for not having valid commercial driver's licenses.

The bus company has had only one other crash in its history. That crash occurred in Illinois and sent three passengers to the hospital. No other vehicles were involved in that crash.

The roll-over on I-35 is still under investigation. If investigators find that fatigue played a role in the crash, Congress may face more pressure to limit the number of hours both bus drivers and truck drivers can be on the road.