Originally Posted by noclue (Post 8120771)

won't ICBC pay out the injuries/med bills?

I heard the owners skipped town. most likely something shady with the bus/business that will led to criminal negligence.

Originally Posted by News1130

Oregon Ford dealer offering free rides home to crash victims
Some passengers are too frightened to get on board a bus




LA GRANDE, OR (NEWS1130) – Some of the injured passengers aboard the Vancouver-based bus that crashed in northeastern Oregon have their passports and are ready to head back home.But some of them are too afraid to get back on a bus.

A car dealership located about 25 miles from the crash site is stepping up and offering free rides.

Chris Huxoll with Legacy Ford Lincoln in La Grande, Oregon, says staff at the dealership were shaken by what happened and wanted to help.

That’s why they decided to give back by supplying half a dozen sport utility vehicles complete with drivers.

“Obviously after you’ve been in a bus accident, we weren’t sure how they were going to get all those people back, and climbing on a bus wouldn’t be ideal for most of them, probably cause a traumatic situation for most of them,” explains Huxoll.

The company is working with the Red Cross to arrange the rides.

“We want to make sure we can help these people where they’re going and to use our fleet of cars and use our fleet of drivers to try and help these people get home in a safe fashion,” says Huxoll.

In the next few days, about half a dozen people will be making the trips northbound stopping in places all over Washington State and the Lower Mainland.

“We’re told some of them need to go to Lynnwood, Seattle, Tacoma and all the way up to Canada,” he adds.

Originally Posted by dinosaur (Post 8127274)

Originally Posted by Yodamaster (Post 8127385)

I'm amazed that people aren't crying out for seat belts to be mandatory on buses, everybody knows that the roof of those might as well be made of tinfoil.

Originally Posted by dangonay (Post 8127634)

Becauses bus fatalities are rare. Last year there were 32,000 motor vehicle fatalities in the US, or about 88 per day. I couldn't find the bus figures for last year, but from 2000-2009 bus fatalities ranged from a low of 3 to a high of 60 deaths per year.

Even in a bad year, there are more people killed in cars in a single day than in buses for the entire year. Buses are extremely safe which is part of the reason these accidents make the news when they happen.

Originally Posted by dangonay (Post 8127706)

^ Buses are extremely safe in that fatalities are low given the numbers of passengers they carry every year. Same with airplanes. But when a plane crashes it's also a big deal because it's a large loss of life in a single incident.

Why spend money on seat belts when they probably wouldn't make a difference anyway? So when the roof collapses you're held in place to make sure you get crushed? You could take an airplane and fill it with airbags, special seats and all sorts of equipment and if the plane crashes doing 500 MPH is it really going to make any difference?

It simply comes down to cost vs benefit.

Originally Posted by inv4zn (Post 8127322)

Apparently the driver worked 100 hours during the 8 days of the trip.

Originally Posted by Yodamaster (Post 8127771)

Planes and buses are completely different, comparing the advantages of safety equipment between the two is simply not logical.

A simple lap belt could suffice in preventing injuries resulting from partial or full ejection from seats. I would rather be held in by a lap belt than be flung around the bus breaking limbs.

Originally Posted by dangonay (Post 8127798)

Buses and airplanes are directly comparable. They both have very low figures for deaths vs the number of passengers they carry (far safer than automobiles). They both achieve this figure by having a low accident rate and by the fact they carry a lot of passengers per trip.

It's simply not feasible or practical to spend billions on safety equipment that will have a very small impact on actual passenger safety.

This is the same as screaming about people having guns after some whacko goes on a killing spree. It's over-reacting. There's no need to increase safety on buses when they're already statistically very safe.