Excessive speed and driver error seen as causes of collision killing 23 last year

Commission of inquiry submits report on bus disaster

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A commission of inquiry investigating the collision of a bus and a lorry filled with paper rolls in March 2004 has found two main causes for the disaster. The crash in Konginkangas in Central Finland killed 23 people.
      The immediate cause of the crash was error on the part of the drivers of the two vehicles.
      The driver of the tractor-trailer combination lost control of the vehicle because of excessive speed and the line he took through the preceding corner.
      Meanwhile, the bus driver, who was one of the people who died, did not try to steer the bus away from the oncoming truck, even though the anti-lock braking system on the bus would have allowed such a manoeuvre.
     
In addition to the immediate causes of the crash, the commission found about 30 other contributory factors, including an excessively heavy load, slippery road, and darkness.
      The commission submitted its report on the investigation to Minister of Justice Leena Luhtanen (SDP) on Thursday.
      The crash was the worst road accident in Finnish history. In addition to the 23 people who were killed, 14 were seriously injured. The truck driver, who was wearing a seat belt, was the only one to have been spared injury.
     
Both the lorry and the bus were driving too fast. The routings and schedules for the vehicles had been planned in such a way that the drivers were forced to either drive at excessive speed or to violate the legally mandatory rest times for commercial transport.
      The commission’s chairman, Esko Lähteenmäki, says that the driver of the tractor-trailer combination should have slowed down while approaching the crest of a hill.
      "With this type of economic driving style, which is taught in drivers’ education, the vehicle would not have started to jackknife, and would have rolled down the hill without any problems."
      Another reason for the loss of control was a steering movement that the truck driver made at the top of the hill.
      The driver had moved at least 64 centimetres - and possibly a metre - to the left edge of the lane, and possibly on top of the yellow line.
      When he saw the flash of the lights of the bus, he swerved back to the centre of his own lane. This was too much for the truck-trailer combination moving at between 85 and 87 kilometres an hour, and the trailer began to swerve back and forth.
     
Simulations and experimental drives showed that neither of the causes alone - the high speed or the steering movements - would have caused the trailer to jackknife. The vehicle would probably have stayed on the road even at the high speed if the driver had kept to the middle of the lane. On the other hand, if the speed had stayed at 80 kmph, straying to the left could have been corrected.
      The legal speed limit for tractor-trailer combinations is 80 kilometres an hour, but the speed limiter devices in the vehicles are set at a maximum speed of 89 km/h.
      The chairman of the commission noted that the extra nine kilometres per hour increases the instability of a trailer by 30%.
      The commission proposes that the speed limitation devices be set at 80 kmph.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Bus crash enquiry: Preliminary investigations will take a couple of months (25.3.2004)
  Bus disaster focuses attention on road safety issues; buses still popular (24.3.2004)
  HS survey: Half of all truck drivers have had trouble with trailers (23.3.2004)
  Bus crash: 20 of the 23 victims from the Greater Helsinki area (22.3.2004)
  At least 23 dead in bus crash in Central Finland (Updated 19.3.2004, 18.30)

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