What Happened
What Happened
On Monday, March 11, 2024, about 11:29 a.m. central daylight time, a 2020 Micro Bird MB II 25-passenger school bus was traveling east on US Highway 24 (US 24) near Rushville, Schuyler County, Illinois. As the school bus negotiated a right-hand curve, it crossed the centerline and collided head-on with a westbound 2001 Mack CH613 truck tractor in combination with a 2001 Vantage 39-foot end-dump semitrailer. The impact ignited an immediate fire involving the school bus. Both vehicles then departed the north side of the roadway, where the combination vehicle’s semitrailer overturned. The Misspelled Wordpostcrash fire spread, engulfing both vehicles. As a result of the crash, the drivers of both vehicles and the three student passengers on the school bus were fatally injured.
What We Found
What We Found
We determined that the probable cause of the Rushville, Illinois, crash was the school bus driver’s impairment and fatigue from multiple prescription medications, which resulted in the school bus crossing the centerline into the path of the combination vehicle.
What We Recommended
Understanding the Risks of Prescription Drug Use, and Ensuring that Driver Assistance Technologies Are Enabled
Although school buses are one of the safest modes of transportation, the NTSB continues to advocate for further improvements in school bus safety. The Rushville crash emphasizes two critical areas where improvements can significantly reduce risk: eliminating use of impairing prescription medication by school bus drivers, and ensuring that driver assistance technologies are enabled.
The NTSB has repeatedly stressed the importance of school bus drivers being medically fit for duty. School bus drivers, and those certifying them, must fully understand the risks associated with using multiple prescription medications, especially those that may impair cognitive function, reaction time, and overall driving ability. It is essential that school bus drivers accurately and completely disclose their health history and all medications they are taking during the hiring and certification process and throughout their employment.
In addition to understanding the risk of prescription medications, driver assistance technologies must remain enabled. In the Rushville crash, the school bus was equipped with a lane departure prevention system, consistent with past NTSB safety recommendations. The circumstances of the crash likely fell within the system’s operational design parameters, meaning that if the system had been active, it could potentially have issued a warning and provided temporary steering assistance as the school bus began to drift from its lane. Driver assistance technologies are important safety features that help reduce the risk of crashes and should remain enabled whenever available.
