On Wednesday, July 12, 2023, about 1:48 a.m. central daylight time, a 2014 Prevost 50-passenger motorcoach with 21 occupants was westbound on Interstate 70 (I-70), near Highland, Madison County, Illinois. The motorcoach was owned and operated by Greyhound Lines, Inc., and was on a scheduled route from Indianapolis, Indiana, to St. Louis, Missouri. As the motorcoach approached the westbound Silver Lake Rest Area near mile marker 27.4, the motorcoach departed I-70 onto the rest area exit ramp, where it collided with three combination vehicles that were parked on the ramp’s right shoulder. As a result, three motorcoach passengers were fatally injured. The driver and 11 motorcoach passengers sustained injuries ranging from minor to serious. The three truck drivers, who were inside their vehicles at the time of the crash, were uninjured.
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We determined that the probable cause of the Highland, Illinois, crash was the motorcoach driver’s departure of the motorcoach from the travel lanes onto the shoulder of the exit ramp due to fatigue. Contributing to the motorcoach driver’s fatigue was his irregular work-rest schedule and prolonged time awake. Contributing to the crash was the failure of Greyhound Lines, Inc. to mitigate the motorcoach driver’s recurring unsafe driving behaviors. Also contributing to the crash were the three combination vehicles parked on the shoulder of the exit ramp, although prohibited by Illinois Statute Section 11-1303, due to the recurring lack of available truck parking. Contributing to the injury severity for some of the motorcoach passengers was their lack of seat belt use.
As a result of this investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board
makes the following new safety recommendations:
To the US Department of Transportation:
- Expand efforts to use the Truck Parking Information Management System to identify rest areas in critical need of additional truck parking. (H-25-5)
- Pursue available options to increase commercial vehicle parking capacity on highways; such as establishing a grant program for states, local governments, and other eligible entities to increase parking for commercial motor vehicles; assessing the feasibility of expanding eligibility for grant programs to allow for parking facility maintenance costs; evaluating the benefits of ending restrictions on private development of rest areas; and seeking additional Congressional appropriations as necessary. (H-25-6)
To the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration:
- Provide guidance through a passenger carrier safety publication on your website, encouraging passenger motor carriers to implement Safety Management Cycle processes and reassess these processes during changes in ownership or executive management, and periodically after implementation of new safety policies or technologies. (H-25-7)
To Greyhound Lines, Inc.:
- Develop and implement a fatigue management program based on the North American Fatigue Management Program to educate your drivers, dispatchers, and other employees about fatigue, its causes, and its countermeasures. (H-25-8)
- Revise driver scheduling policies to reduce scheduling variability that results in irregular work-rest cycles. (H-25-9)
- Create an electronic personnel file management system to ensure that all driver records—including those pertaining to disciplinary action—are easily accessible to terminal managers and safety personnel, both on and off site. (H-25-10)
- Incorporate recorded driver monitoring system events into safety and disciplinary policies, including:
• detection and prevention of fatigued driving;
• allowable number of critical safety violations a driver can have in a specific time frame (such as per month, per quarter); and include both coaching and disciplinary action up to and including termination for exceeding established thresholds. (H-25-11)
- Establish a written policy to proactively apply Safety Management Cycle processes beyond compliance reviews to assess the ongoing effectiveness of new safety policies and technologies after they are adopted. (H-25-12)
- Establish policies to require pretrip safety briefings every time there is a change of driver, at every terminal before departure regardless of departure time, and every time the motorcoach takes on new passengers. This should include driver briefings for awareness on which states they will be driving through that have mandatory enforcement of seat belts. At a minimum, briefings should include the following information:
• the availability of seat belts, the potential legal requirement to wear them in mandatory enforcement states, and how to fasten them;
• ways to address urgent onboard safety concerns, including dialing 911; and
• the location and use of the fire extinguisher and the emergency exits. (H-25-13)
To the National Coalition on Truck Parking:
- Publish an updated report that proposes solutions to truck parking capacity shortages, including expanding grant programs and funding of maintenance costs, ending restrictions on private development at rest areas, enhancing the Truck Parking Information Management System coverage to identify areas in critical need of additional parking, and projecting future truck volume and parking needs. (H-25-14)
To the American Bus Association and the United Motorcoach Association:
- Inform your members about the Highland, Illinois, crash and urge them to develop fatigue management programs based on the North American Fatigue Management Program to educate drivers and other employees about fatigue, its causes, and its countermeasures. (H-25-15)
We also reiterated Safety Recommendations H-12-30 and H-22-4, previously issued to the FMCSA, and we changed the classification of H-22-4.
To the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration:
- Incorporate scientifically based fatigue mitigation strategies into the hours-of-service regulations for passenger-carrying drivers who operate during the nighttime window of circadian low. (H-12-30)
- Provide guidance to motor carriers to proactively use the onboard video event recorder information to aid in driver training and ensure driver compliance with regulatory rules essential for safe operation. (H-22-4)
