Sleepy driver faulted in ’16 bus crash
DALLAS — A bus driver with “acute sleep deficit” failed to stay in his lane and caused his vehicle to careen out of control, resulting in a wreck that killed nine people and injured nearly 40 others in 2016, federal safety investigators said in a report released Tuesday.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined the bus left the road and rolled when the 29-year-old driver overcorrected and abruptly braked. The highway north of Laredo, Texas, was wet from a recent rain, and the bus had an inoperable antilock braking system, according to the board’s report.
The bus began its trip in Brownsville and was en route to the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino in Eagle Pass.
Seven passengers died at the scene, another died while being transported to a hospital and the ninth died of injuries days after the May 2016 accident. The driver, whose name has not been released by authorities, was treated for minor injuries.
Regulators found that the driver had had little sleep in the preceding hours and had blurred vision “due to hyperglycemia resulting from poorly controlled diabetes.”
The stretch of highway where the crash occurred, meanwhile, had not been treated with a common pavement texture that reduces skidding. Four days after the wreck, the Texas Department of Transportation added a chip sealant to the highway.