Fatal Bus Crash in Worcester Blamed on Solar Glare

Authorities have said an 80-year-old woman was killed in a fatal bus crash involving a minivan and a school bus in Worcester, Massachusetts.  According to a recent news article from the Worcester Telegram, the woman’s husband was also seriously injured in the crash.   The accident is still under investigation, but it is believed that what is being called “extreme sun glare” played a major role in the accident.

bus-stop-1444019-mApparently, the sun glare was so bad that officers who responded to the scene of the deadly Worcester County car accident said they could barely see anything due to the glare. As for the accident itself, authorities have said the decedent was driving their minivan around 4:30 p.m. when she allegedly crashed into a bus that was making a turn. The minivan collided head first into the side of a school bus, causing substantial damage to the minivan. The driver was coming out of a parking lot when making the turn. 

Police have said the driver of the school bus believed he had enough time to pull out and turn onto the roadway, but the decedent likely never even saw the school bus in front of her path due to the brightness from the sun. When the van hit the side of the bus, the roof was damaged heavily, and the van became lodged under the side of the bus.  It took firefighters around two hours to cut through the wreckage and extract the three occupants from the van.  In addition to the decedent and her husband, an 11-year-old girl was with them riding in the rear seat of the minivan.

The young girl was not injured in the Worcester car crash.  The female driver was pronounced dead at the scene of the horrific accident, and her husband was taken to University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center in Worcester.  He suffered serious personal injuries, including internal organ damage, and will be in the hospital for a while, but doctors expect he will survive the deadly car accident.

The reason it took two hours to extract the decedent was because the van had actually managed to become crushed around her body, essentially locking her in place. Fortunately, the school bus was empty at the time of the crash, because the driver had just discharged the last student at a local county club before pulling back onto the roadway when the crash occurred.

Police said that it was not the fault of the driver of the school bus, and it did not appear that it was decedent’s fault either, as she could not likely even see the school bus pulling onto the road.  They just described this as one of those rare accidents when nobody was at fault.

While this accident may not have been anyone’s fault, most car accidents are not truly accidents, as they are the result of someone’s negligence.  This is the reason that many now prefer the term car crash instead of car accident, since an accident implies that it is nobody’s fault, when this is not often the case.

If you are injured in an accident in Massachusetts, call Jeffrey Glassman Injury Lawyers for a free and confidential appointment: (617) 777-7777.

Additional Resources:

‘Extreme solar glare’ noted in fatal bus-van crash in Westboro, March 3, 2016, Worcester Telegram, By Norman Miller

More Blog Entries:

Floyd-Tunnell v. Shelter Mut. Ins. Co. Uninsured Motorist Coverage and Stacking, July 3, 2014, Boston Car Accident Lawyer Blog

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