Bus hits CSX bridge, 4 die

Saw this article today on Syracuse.com. Bus driver strayed off route:

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/ ... y_mor.html

K

Hmm Parkways In New york are restricted to non- commercial or passenger cars only.
Guess the Driver who slammed his bus between two signs stating 10' 6" clearance was another reject of our public school system.


Jaap

to many blined people if you can't see all the lights and signs then you should not be driveing. That or maybe they should put a toll gate there to catch all these stupied people that go down that way with high and wide trucks, buses and moter homes.

DutchRailnut wrote:Hmm Parkways In New york are restricted to non- commercial or passenger cars only.
Guess the Driver who slammed his bus between two signs stating 10' 6" clearance was another reject of our public school system.
Jaap

It was a 10' 9" clearance.

There are alot more than just 2 signs saying 10' 9" Clearance. Both entrances to that section of the Onondaga Lake Parkway are graced with giant yellow signs clearly warning large vehicles NOT to go down that road. Add to that the fact that along the length of the road (in both directions) leading up to the bridge there are several more large yellow signs (some of them are even flashing!) telling any large vehicle to turn back that may have missed the first large yellow sign. Lastly, the bridge itself has a big reflective neon orange strip along the bottom girders (on both sides) as a last ditch warning (the only way to make it any brighter would be to use floodlights on it).

That bridge was constructed decades ago by the NYC to cross the old Oswego Canal. Since then, the canal has been replaced by the Parkway, but the bridge has remained the same all through the Penn-Central, Conrail, and now CSX years. That is why it's so low over the road.

Howabout looking at this from a different perspective. City of Syracuse builds a transportation center for rail and bus to handle transfers, a nice facility. Just one wrong turn puts you on that parkway with nowhere to turn around. This guy made the wrong turn, the only correction can be done by an immediate turn, usually its realized too late. You dont just "K" turn or "U" turn a 45 foot motorcoach.

There are certainly enough lights and signs concerning the clearance, why he did not stop, nobody knows at this time. But it was late night, he was about half way through a 10 hour trip. He had done this run before, and there is alot of construction around Syracuse.

After all of these vehicles have hit this bridge, why hasnt DOT lowered the road to correct the situation.

Buses travel that parkway on the upper side of the bridge regularly to get to and from the park, during the holidays.

You know how we have guardrails which prevent people from accidentally driving off the side of a steep embankment? Maybe that road needs to have a guardrail which is 10'9" up in the air?

railwatcher wrote:Howabout looking at this from a different perspective. City of Syracuse builds a transportation center for rail and bus to handle transfers, a nice facility. Just one wrong turn puts you on that parkway with nowhere to turn around. This guy made the wrong turn, the only correction can be done by an immediate turn, usually its realized too late. You dont just "K" turn or "U" turn a 45 foot motorcoach.

There are certainly enough lights and signs concerning the clearance, why he did not stop, nobody knows at this time. But it was late night, he was about half way through a 10 hour trip. He had done this run before, and there is alot of construction around Syracuse.

After all of these vehicles have hit this bridge, why hasnt DOT lowered the road to correct the situation.

Buses travel that parkway on the upper side of the bridge regularly to get to and from the park, during the holidays.

There's absolutely no doubt that NYSDOT has proper signage indicating the low clearance, and that the bus in question could have stopped. The driver was most definitely at fault. The driver could have stopped instead of killing 4 and injuring 18 passengers. Once the turn had been made, it was difficult to turn the bus around, but if the driver had been properly attentive and had simply stopped, the local police would have been more than happy to stop traffic to allow the high clearance bus to back up.

Mega-Bus is entirely liable for this accident. Cheap and effective safety measures should have been taken, such as a cheap and reliable GPS navigation system that would warn when a driver was off-route. After this tragedy, it might be time for New York State to ban high clearance multi-level buses.

goodnightjohnwayne wrote:

railwatcher wrote:Howabout looking at this from a different perspective. City of Syracuse builds a transportation center for rail and bus to handle transfers, a nice facility. Just one wrong turn puts you on that parkway with nowhere to turn around. This guy made the wrong turn, the only correction can be done by an immediate turn, usually its realized too late. You dont just "K" turn or "U" turn a 45 foot motorcoach.

There are certainly enough lights and signs concerning the clearance, why he did not stop, nobody knows at this time. But it was late night, he was about half way through a 10 hour trip. He had done this run before, and there is alot of construction around Syracuse.

After all of these vehicles have hit this bridge, why hasnt DOT lowered the road to correct the situation.

Buses travel that parkway on the upper side of the bridge regularly to get to and from the park, during the holidays.

There's absolutely no doubt that NYSDOT has proper signage indicating the low clearance, and that the bus in question could have stopped. The driver was most definitely at fault. The driver could have stopped instead of killing 4 and injuring 18 passengers. Once the turn had been made, it was difficult to turn the bus around, but if the driver had been properly attentive and had simply stopped, the local police would have been more than happy to stop traffic to allow the high clearance bus to back up.

Mega-Bus is entirely liable for this accident. Cheap and effective safety measures should have been taken, such as a cheap and reliable GPS navigation system that would warn when a driver was off-route. After this tragedy, it might be time for New York State to ban high clearance multi-level buses.

The problem is not the height of the multi-level bus. There are plenty of bridges in NY which the bus could have cleared with ease. The driver apparently did not heed the clearance signs so he and his employer should be punished.

FWIW guys, I was not saing the driver wasn't in error here. Just pointing out that there is and has been problem enough times at this bridge. Not the railroads fault, for sure. Driver screwed up, no doubt. After all those signs he hit that bridge hard. The problem is when will they correct the problem with either the clearance or make it impossible to miss the turn going to the transportation center.

Had I not known that he did not make it to the tranposrtation center, I would have thought he had a GPS error. Set for the shortest way west from the transportation center to I-90 westbound and on to Buffalo, then Toronto.

railwatcher wrote:FWIW guys, I was not saing the driver wasn't in error here. Just pointing out that there is and has been problem enough times at this bridge. Not the railroads fault, for sure. Driver screwed up, no doubt. After all those signs he hit that bridge hard. The problem is when will they correct the problem with either the clearance or make it impossible to miss the turn going to the transportation center.

Had I not known that he did not make it to the tranposrtation center, I would have thought he had a GPS error. Set for the shortest way west from the transportation center to I-90 westbound and on to Buffalo, then Toronto.

who seaid the state would do anthing to correct the problum with the bridge? they never did anything after the first 50 accdents why do anything now? Maybe it will take anouther 100 people get killed and 200 impact studys and millions of dollers to get pissed away before some one gets off there ass in Albany and gos hay maybe we better lower the road.

Msot GPS won't tell you if there is a low bridge it only tells you to take the route in which you want to go.

and what would you want the state to do ???
more signs, raise the railroad, lower road?? in a few years another idiot with a even bigger bus would hit the bridge.
Even state can't fix stupitity.

I think that any driver with a CDL who is involved in an incident such as this should loose there license permanently! At least 12 times a year some boob tries to cram a 13 foot high truck through an overpass clearly marked 10'9" here in Rochester. In August on the Lake Ontario State Parkway, which is closed to commercial vehicles, a 12' 6" semi tried to fit through an 11 foot opening, at highway speed! If a "professional" driver dosen't know the height of his rig or even how to read a sign there is no way in hell they should be earning a living on the road. The driver of this bus should be held criminaly liable for the 4 lives he ended and should never get behind the wheel of anything larger than a lawn tractor ever again. Neither the state nor the railroad should bear any responsibility or cost in fixing this percieved "problem". It ain't broke so don't fix it.
Mike

DutchRailnut wrote:and what would you want the state to do ???

Hey, I have an idea! You know how we have guardrails which prevent people from accidentally driving off the side of a steep embankment? Maybe that road needs to have a guardrail which is 10'9" up in the air? So if somebody tries to drive a vehicle that high under that bridge, they hit the guardrail first, which has enough "give" to it that the vehicle is impacted but not penetrated.

yeah Russ try to explain that to people on upper level of the bus.

This is really a traffic enforcement issue, and not a railroad issue, though any loss of life around railroad property is unfortunate.