Orange, NJ — Witnesses say that a bus driver for Coach USA (dba ONE Bus) may have been trying to “make” a red light along Main Street when it crashed into a Nissan car, hit a pedestrian, then hopped a curb and crashed into a Bank of America building. This was on Wednesday afternoon, July 8, at about 3:00 p.m.
3 people were injured by the accident, including 1 man who was in critical condition. No names were released, but the critically injured pedestrian is a 34-year old New York man. The bus driver for Coach USA is a 77-year old man and the Nissan’s driver is a 39-year old woman.
At the last update, the New York man was in critical condition while the bus driver & Nissan driver were less seriously injured.
The accident when the Coach USA bus was headed along Main Street and came to a yellow light at Scotland Road. According to witnesses, the Coach USA bus tried to speed through the intersection and make a left turn.
However, the Nissan was trying to make a right turn and the Coach USA bus crashed into it, then hit the 34-year old New York man who was standing on the sidewalk.
Then, the Coach USA bus crashed into the side of the Bank of America building on the corner.
Right now, the police said that they might file charges, but haven’t done so yet. Coach USA’s subsidiary, ONE Bus, said that they are going to cooperate with the authorities.
It looks like the bus was headed Newark and didn’t have any passengers aboard.
Map of the Accident
View from the Road
Commentary:
This kind of accident is completely unacceptable, don’t you agree? You’d expect a Ford Mustang or a Corvette to try and speed through a red light, but not a gigantic charter bus. If this driver wasn’t having a medical emergency that afternoon, then he’s going to need to do some serious explaining. For that matter, so is the company that employed him.
If the police are doing their jobs thoroughly, this bus driver’s record will be carefully inspected and if he wasn’t qualified to be behind the wheel in the first place, then he and his company may face some serious consequences.
I happened to pull up this subsidiary of Coach USA’s record from the DOT, and it appears that they have a fairly high violation-to-vehicle ratio with almost 100 vehicle maintenance violations yet only 39 buses in their fleet. That’s close to 3 violations per bus, which isn’t something I’d want to read if I were taking that bus to the other side of town.
The bottom line here? I think that this information I’ve pulled up is more than enough to warrant at least one serious investigation into this driver and the company that hired him.
— Grossman Law Offices
