Another BUS Crash 1 Dead

[Bestekustoms]

Well Guys...  Another Bus Crash Today Just Outside Of Colorado..

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-12-05-wyo-bus-crash_N.htm

     

JOHN

[cody]

It can happen so fast, our prayers to the injured and their familys and to the family of the one that didn't make it, we roll the dice everytime we venture out, even being in one of the safest vehicles on the road, we're still not immune.

[Bestekustoms]

Hello Cody.  Yes You Are Right !!!. It All Happens So Fast.

Back When I Was Driving Tour Buses 20 Years Ago Or So.I Had To Do An Emergency Trip Up To Aspen Co. With A Full Load Of Passengers. The Airport There Was Closed And All These People Were Stuck In The (Old) Denver Airport. It Was A Very Important Job To Me.I Was New And Still Haveing To Prove Myself. Having 47 People In Your Care Is A Big Responsiblity. You Have To Be O So Careful.(Long Story Short) I Was A Rockie At The Time.I Had Maybe A Half Dozen Trips In The Mountains. So There Were Two Buses Going To Aspen. Me Being One And The Other Driver Was A Retired Greyhound Driver.(Know It All) I Was Made To Follow The Old SOB Thru The Trip. He Was A Cocky Old Guy Who Knew It All.!!!. (You Know The Type) But,This Guy Was Way Worse. He Wouldnt Shut Up...The Whole Time On The Radio..Do This..Be Carefull There Over And Over & Over Again !!!. This Guy Was Getting Me Scared And Had Me Sweating Real Bad.. Finally I Had Enough And Told The Guy To SHUT tfu. !! If Anyone Out There Has Ever Been On Rabbit Ears Pass In A Blizzard Knows What Im Talking About. !!!!. WOW What A Trip....ZERO Vizablity. I Can Still Remember It Today.

Anyway,He Gets Mad At Me And Takes Off Into The Storm Solo. (Not Cool) So Here I Am All Alone No Lights In Front Of Me & And None In The Rear.And Let Me Tell You...This STORM Was BAD !!! Many Hours Later I Get To Aspen With My White Knuckles About Bleeding. Everyone Was Safe And Throwing Money At Me For Getting Them There Safe And Sound. I Felt Like A HERO..... But Where Was The Other Bus?? He Should Have Been There Way Before Me?? But He Was No Where To Be Found. No Radio NO NOTHING. So I Drive Back To Denver And Get Back About Late Morning.

So,What Happened To The Other Bus??. Well He Crashed With 47 People On Board. Thank God NO ONE Was Hurt. There Was Just A Lot Of Mad People All Wishing They Would Have Rode With The Rockie !!!

He (The Old SOB)Was Fired From The Company For Careless Driving And He Was Even Ticketed By The State Hwy Police.....And Me...Well I Was Givin A Raise. .

So...The Best Thing A Driver Can Do Is....Keep His Head Out Of His @$#. Have A Good Attutude And Pray Often.!!  10-4...10-4

Everytime I Here of An Accident Im Reminded Of This One Night In The Worse Snow Storm Ive Ever Been In.. Driving A MCI-9 DD With A Stick Shift. WOW... That In Itself Is A Scary Ordeal..

JOHN

[BG6]

This is why you don't drive where you can't stop before getting there!  If you are going to fast to stop before you get past your farthest view of the road ahead, you are going too fast.

Notice that this coach was full.  That means an extra FOUR TONS of people aboard, plus maybe another ton of luggage, plus several hundred pounds of fuel, and that bus was pretty close to GVW limit.

[PCC]

Every time I go out and return without incident, I am so grateful for His protection and safety.

Thousands of miles - could I feel any more blessed?

I pray for the driver and those passengers whose lives have been altered. May they heal well and return to their lives without further incident.

Keith

[John316]

John,

I know what you mean about Rabbit ears. We did that, not too long ago, in a blizzard too. Almost zero visibility, snow packed, etc. We crawled down that in first gear, most of the time (hazards on the whole way). When you take that pass that slow, it seems like it will never end. It just goes on for ever!

God bless,

John

[cody]

Here on the south shore of lake superior we can get whiteout conditions on a moments notice, for 20 years I drove 97 miles, each way, from Skanee to the Marquette Branch Prison to work, 6 days a week, every week, winter and summer, I drove in storms that sometimes I watched out the side windows and used the snow banks as guides to tell me if I was on the road or not, in this area long commutes are normal and we just do it because thats what we do to feed our families, sure there are jobs that would do the same but I wanted to get ahead and make good money and a state job in an era that was ripe with promotions, I did what I would now think as being foolish.  The last 5 years of my career were spent working in a prison that was only 25 miles from home, was like retiring to not have the long drive, Thankfully I never had an accident, unfortunately I was the first on the scene of several, some with injuries, many with deaths, it's never easy to come around a corner at 2AM and find debri all over the road, you pull over and start looking for the car.  Now, I'm older, maybe not wiser, but I pick and choose when and where I drive and if it looks like it could get bad, I just don't go, many don't have that option and I ache for the ones left behind when the road turns bad.

[niles500]

Rabbit Ears would be on the way to Steamboat -FWIW

[gumpy]

... I Had To Do An Emergency Trip Up To Aspen Co. With A Full Load Of Passengers. The Airport There Was Closed And All These People Were Stuck In The (Old) Denver Airport. ... If Anyone Out There Has Ever Been On Rabbit Ears Pass In A Blizzard Knows What Im Talking About. !!!!. WOW What A Trip....ZERO Vizablity. I Can Still Remember It Today.

Just curious ...  If you were going from Stapleton to Aspen, why did you go over Rabbit Ears to Steamboat?  Isn't that kind of the long way to get to Aspen?  

I've driven those storms out there all my life. Some years are worse than others.

I was in a storm in WY last spring that was the worst I've ever driven in.  At times the only visibility was negative visibility (i.e. all I could see was the side of my bus in my rear view mirror).  We got out about 30 miles on the way to Laramie and my Mother called and asked where I was. She said they just closed the road to Creston (I'm currently halfway to Creston) and I should turn around and come back. Well, for starters, I'm pulling a toad and there is no place to turn around. I said well, I'm halfway there. I'm not driving back through this crap. It literally cannot get any worst going ahead!  It finally let up a bit by Rawlins. Elk Mountain had more blizzard, but not quite as bad. We made it ok, but sure picked up some extra weight in ice. My water manifolds froze in the rear bay because I didn't have the house heat running as I use the coach heat when driving. Didn't damage anything, though.

[TomC]

When I was driving, I had a simple solution to driving in a white out type storm-pull over for the night.  Nine times out of ten, the next day the storm blew through. Only once in 21 years did I have to wait two days for the storm to pass.  Even then, I still wasn't late on my load.  It's just not worth chancing driving in snowy conditions.  Good Luck, TomC

[luvrbus]

Looking at the video it was one of their older VanHools wasn't damaged that much the driver must have caught all the impact or something came through the windshield and got him.

[BG6]

When I was driving, I had a simple solution to driving in a white out type storm-pull over for the night.  Nine times out of ten, the next day the storm blew through.

I'm with you there!

In the winter of 2002 - 2003, an ice storm his Nashville as I was trying to go through.  After moving about 100 feet in an hour, I moved over to the shoulder, parked, put on a DVD and put dinner into the microwave.  When I looked out the window after the movie was over, the car that I had been behind was still in sight.

A siren blipping woke me up at about 2 in the morning, and I looked out to see an ambulance trying to get through, traffic was still one big jam.

The next morning was clear and bright, and I slow-rolled through town and out to the west.  The whole route looked like the Highway to Hell from the first Gulf war, for mile after mile there were cars, trucks and buses with their noses or tails in the ditch . . .and my Freightliner was not one of them, I had slept well and had a hot breakfast before putting the truck in gear.  I always figured that I had been hired to get my load from dock to dock, not from dock to CRASH SITE, and sometimes the fastest way to get through is to park and wait.

[gumpy]

When I was driving, I had a simple solution to driving in a white out type storm-pull over for the night.  Nine times out of ten, the next day the storm blew through. Only once in 21 years did I have to wait two days for the storm to pass.  Even then, I still wasn't late on my load.  It's just not worth chancing driving in snowy conditions.  Good Luck, TomC

And for people who are not accustomed to that, that's a very sound decision.

Sometimes you just don't have a choice. When we left, the weather was good and the roads were open. 30 miles later it changed.
There are no places to pull over along that stretch of highway.

Such is the nature of weather and roads in WY.

I'm used to it. I grew up in that stuff. We don't view it as a big problem, just a bit of an inconvenience because we know how to drive in it. There's a reason
I didn't put highway tires on the drive axle of my coach like 99% of busnuts do.

[cody]

Same thing here, like craig said, i grew up in these conditions, we set up our vehicles to handle it and then we learn to cope with it, in this area, 99% of the other vehicles on the road are also set up to handle winter with snow tires and experineced drivers for the most part with the exception of the occasional winter tourist.  We take our time and prepare as well as we can, if we have the choice, most choose not to be on the roads in a storm but when you deal with winter in a northern area, especially in an area prone to lake effect storms, you can have the sun shineing and 10 minutes later your in a whiteout.  The safest option was always to wait out a storm but that isn't always possible.

[jok]

Down here in lower Michigan we don't get near the snow that Cody is use to. I remember the snow we got when we lived in Marquette, MI and it was amazing. Down here the schools usually stay open with 6 inches of snow and most people can drive in it, except for the first couple of storms. I love driving in snow (my old boss said that it was because I'm 25% Polish) and since I have plowed snow off and on over the last 30+ years I have seen some real stupid moves by drivers. I will let them pass me since they are in a hurry to end up in a ditch. I have been in the ditch once when I was cut off by a tanker truck. Didn't want to take my chances against a trailer full of fuel.

John