The National Transportation and Safety Board issued a new report about Ophadell Williams, a bus tour bus driver responsible for the death of 15 people in a deadly crash. The report blames driver fatigue as the cause of the crash.
On March 15, 2011 Williams was driving a bus operated by World Wide Tours. He picked up his passengers at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut and was heading to Chinatown in New York City. Williams was driving 78 miles per hour and having a hard time keeping the bus away from the road's edge on the I-95 in the Bronx. The bus toppled over and a deadly support pole tore through the roof. Fifteen passengers were killed while 17 were injured.
The report found that Williams was unable to control the bus due to a lack of sleep. Williams worked mostly overnight shifts and would return to a nighttime sleep schedule on his days off, a transition that can cause a similar feeling to jetlag. Williams claimed to have slept during his down time and while passengers were gambling in the casinos.
The investigation found that Williams was using his cell phone and driving around a rental car during the times that he claimed to be sleeping. These phone records, rental car records and his work schedule indicated that Williams only had time to sleep three hours at a time in the 72 hours before the crash.
The NTSB report concluded that Williams "lack of evasive braking or corrective steering action as the bus drifted off the roadway was consistent with fatigue-induced performance impairment."
Sleep is very important for those in the travel industry. Airplane pilots are required to have at least 10 hours of rest time, with an opportunity of eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. Studies show that driving while fatigued is even more dangerous than drunk driving. Williams had not been drinking and no drugs were found in his system.
World Wide Tours had hired Williams even though his license had been suspended 18 times and he had been fired twice from other companies. Additionally, Williams did not turn in his driver's logs to the company, as required by federal safety regulations. The company has since been shut down and several employees were transferred to the Great Escapes tour company, which is still in operation.
Williams received minor injuries during the crash. He pleaded not guilty to 15 counts of manslaughters and criminally negligent homicide. He is in prison on Rikers Island on a $250,000 bail and his next court date is in September.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
