Speed not factor in bus flipping, company says
An operating manager for the private charter company whose bus overturned and injured 29 passengers said Saturday that the cause was “ambiguous” because trackers on the bus show it wasn’t speeding.
Three people remained hospitalized in fair condition Saturday after the bus owned by Charter Bros. flopped onto its side Friday on bustling Highway 101 in San Francisco.
Avi Josen, operating manager for the family-run business in the East Bay, said he hopes a California Highway Patrol investigation will provide more answers, but for now, to his knowledge, “everything seems to have checked out” on some basic factors in the crash.
“It’s definitely not a maintenance issue. It’s not a driver issue. The reason why this happened is very ambiguous,” Josen told The Chronicle. “We have trackers on our units. It was not a speeding issue.”
CHP investigators have not ruled out speed as a potential cause. The speed limit in the area is 50 mph. The bus driver, identified by KPIX-TV as Renato Rodriguez, told the station at the scene that speed could have played a role because of a curve in the road.
The bus had been headed to a holiday party in the South Bay, said Officer Vu Williams, a CHP spokesman. Josen declined to release information on the company’s client or the bus’ destination. Renato told KPIX that he picked up a large group on Harrison Street in San Francisco and was driving to the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Palo Alto.
Twenty-two of the injured, all in their 20s and 30s, wound up at San Francisco General Hospital, said Brent Andrew, a hospital spokesman. Nineteen were soon discharged and sent home.
Two more victims were taken to St. Francis Memorial Hospital on Friday night, and both were released Saturday morning, said a hospital spokeswoman. One passenger taken to the emergency room at St. Luke’s Campus hospital was also discharged, a hospital spokeswoman said.
One man who left San Francisco General on Saturday told KGO-TV that his name is Marco Zorzi, he was a passenger, and the crash came on so suddenly nobody had time to brace. His head was swathed in a bandage, and he said he forgot a lot of what had happened in the accident.
The CHP took the bus for investigation, Williams said. So far, only driver impairment has been ruled out as a cause of the crash, officials said Saturday. The bus driver did not suffer major injuries, Williams said.
CHP records online show that Charter Bros. earned satisfactory ratings in 2015 and 2016 on CHP inspections as well as in controlled substance and alcohol tests.
Inspectors from the CHP division office in Vallejo will be looking at mechanical issues as they probe the “primary collision factor,” Vu said. Preliminary investigation suggests the driver was not distracted, he said.
“It was really dry. Traffic conditions were normal. We don’t have any indication any other vehicles cut the driver off. We do not believe he was impaired,” Vu said. “We’re looking at pretty much everything.”
The crash occurred just after 8 p.m. Friday in the southbound lanes of Highway 101, north of Cesar Chavez Street on a stretch of the freeway known as Hospital Curve.
Witnesses told investigators that the bus suddenly began to fishtail and careen out of control while traveling in the fast lane. The bus hit the center median, tumbled onto its side and skidded across the busy freeway, injuring everyone aboard, officials said.
Other drivers slammed on their brakes and swerved to avoid hitting the bus.
Assistant Chief Bill Storti of the San Francisco Fire Department said 27 passengers made it out on their own or were helped by others to crawl to safety through escape hatches in the roof or out broken windows.
The last two passengers trapped inside had to be rescued by firefighters who freed them with large prying tools, Storti said.
Witnesses told investigators that the bus suddenly began to fishtail and careen out of control while traveling in the fast lane. It hit the center divider before tipping over on its right side and skidding across the lanes to the shoulder,
The crash shut down all but one of the southbound lanes on the freeway until 2:15 a.m. Saturday, when all lanes were reopened, CHP said.