Bus hits overpass in Boston, injuring more than 30

In this photo released by the Boston Fire Department via Twitter, firemen work to remove injured passengers from a bus that hit an bridge as it traveled along Soldiers Field Road in the Allston neighborhood of Boston Saturday night, Feb. 2, 2013. / AP Photo/Boston Fire Department

Updated February 3, 2013, 7:56 p.m. ET

BOSTONThe scene could hardly have been more frightening for a Pennsylvania high school student just returning from a tour of Harvard University when the bus she was on slammed into an overpass, injuring dozens of passengers.

She did what most kids would do. She called her mother.

"She was screaming and crying and saying that the roof was caving in and that she couldn't see anything, and she hit her head and she hurt her arm," said Teresa Merrigan, describing the call from her daughter Alana.

Alana and the 41 others on the Calvary Coach bus had just begun the hours-long journey back to the Philadelphia area late Saturday. The driver, Samuel J. Jackson, was trying to navigate Boston's confusing maze of roads and rotaries, famously challenging to out-of-towners. He looked down at his GPS and looked back up and saw the bridge but was too close to avoid hitting it, Ray Talmedge, owner of the Philadelphia-based bus company, told WCAU-TV.

Thirty-five people were injured in the crash, Massachusetts state police said. One person was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries and three with serious injuries, the Boston Emergency Medical Services said.

Some passengers were trapped for more than an hour as rescue crews worked to free them, Massachusetts state police said. Firefighters stood atop the bus, part of its roof crumpled, and used boards to extract passengers, fire department photos showed. The bus suffered significant damage in the crash.

Authorities said the bus did not belong on Soldier's Field Road, a major crosstown street where a 10-foot height limit is in place and oversized vehicles are not allowed. Signs warning of the overpass' height restriction are "all over the place" on the road, Steve MacDonald, a spokesman for the Boston Fire Department, said Sunday.

Jackson, who was uninjured, "failed to heed signs" warning of the height limit, state police said, and he will likely be cited for an over-height violation. State police said they'll also investigate how long Jackson was driving on Saturday, and the probe will determine whether he faces more serious charges.

In this photo released by the Boston Fire Department via Twitter, firemen work to remove injured passengers from a bus that hit an bridge as it traveled along Soldiers Field Road in the Allston neighborhood of Boston Saturday night, Feb. 2, 2013.

/ AP Photo/Boston Fire Department

Talmedge, who said he didn't know anything about the road restrictions, said Jackson also drives a school bus. No one answered the phone Sunday at a number listed for Jackson in Philadelphia.

Neither federal nor Pennsylvania state records show crashes involving Calvary Coach over the past two years or complaints filed against the company.

The students were part of a Destined for a Dream Foundation group, Talmedge said. Officials with the Bristol, Pa.-based group, a nonprofit that helps underprivileged young people, would not comment on the crash when reached by phone.

The group's Facebook page said the trip to Harvard was to "visit the campus, sit with the office of cultural advancement, followed by a tour of the campus ... followed by Harvard Square (shopping, eating, site seeing...etc...) This should be a fun time for all!"

Transit officials sent buses to pick up other passengers and get them out of the frigid temperatures.

The accident caused only cosmetic damage to the bridge and road, state police said. The road was reopened Sunday.

The crash recalled a similar accident in Syracuse, N.Y., in 2010 when the driver of a double-decker Megabus missed his exit and was using a personal GPS to find the bus station. He passed 13 low-bridge warning signs, some with flashing yellow lights, before hitting an overpass. Four people were killed. The driver was acquitted of homicide charges.

In December, a driver who prosecutors said was nearly asleep at the wheel was acquitted of the most serious charges in a crash that killed 15 gamblers returning to New York City from a Connecticut casino in 2011.

Federal officials stepped up enforcement of bus safety regulations last year, closing more than two dozen operations that mostly ferry passengers in the busy East Coast transportation corridor. It was the largest single federal crackdown on the industry.

[Jonseen]

If the road is a major route to the Turnpike, maybe they should consider fixing that overpass?? Was it the GPS that took him that way? Maybe the GPS needs to be told of warning signs on the road.

[myfault2]

Uh-oh! Ban buses and ban AAA. The only way to stop this in the future.

[Ericwvb]

People need to be more observant of Murphy's law, which can be stated as "If there's more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will result in disaster, then somebody will do it that way."

If tall vehicles travel this road, then once in a while someone will ignore the signage and ram into the overpass.

The cheap "solution" is to build a steel skeleton over the road with the same height a few hundred meters before the overpass. Running into that won't kill anyone but will disable the colliding vehicle. Fine the owner of the vehicle for twice the cost it takes to rebuild it after each collision.

[PourpaixPourpaix]

I'd be surprised if I missed less than half the traffic signs on any given trip. Between drivers who run a red light, whip in front of me, then slow down, pedestrians that dart out in the middle of the street unannounced (or just take a stroll down a traffic lane, and of course the thoughtful bicyclists trying to decide whether the world should treat them like a motor car or pedestrian at that given moment, who's got time to see and sort out which graffiti-laden messages signal our impending doom and which are trying to get us to buy whiskey with a scantily-clad siren?

[SlimeBagObama]

Boston? Just a bus full of Liberals. Probably heading back from the Welfare office.

[PourpaixPourpaix]

Gee, now children are automatically labelled Liberals and marked with apathy for their health? Wish all the children dead, and who's gonna fight for the Fatherland and work 80 hour weeks to establish a nation of wealthy fascists?

[tempestbourne]

Is that you, Jimmy Lee *****?

[samXXkiley]

coucou,
In addition to the driver, the ministries of transport and public works will assume the responsibility of such a tragedy.
"au revoir"

[JohnRCovert]

It's time to fix the Soldiers Field Road hazard

To the Editors of the Boston Globe:

We've had another commercial vehicle ignore the "Cars Only" restriction
on Soldiers Field Road and hit the 10-foot-high Western Avenue
overpass. This happens several times a year, but it's usually a truck,
not a passenger bus. This time there are some three-dozen injuries,
some of them life-changing.

Drivers seem to follow GPS instructions which do not take the
commercial vehicle restriction into account nor the fact that the exit
for I-90 is 1/4 mile before the hard right turn visible on a GPS
screen. See the image with Google Maps directions.

http://www.covert.org/crash.jpg

It's time for real action to prevent this in the future, and it may
require something as drastic as flashing lights, bell, sirens, and
gates that close like a railroad crossing when an overheight vehicle
attempts to enter the roadway.

[FredianoGB]

This has been going on in Boston forever along the Charles. This is just the latest. I remember seeing U-Haul wedge itself back in the late 70s. Alot of new folks moving in every school year. See, the problem is, they need to move up before they go to school, and are not smart enough yet not to wedge a U-Haul into an overpass.

[NYgfwa]

I live in Harvard Square and I saw a low clearance pedestrian bridge over Memorial Drive years ago that had to be replaced when some stupid truck driver rammed his vehicle into it because he ignored low clearance signs. Now in this situation, this numbskull bus driver needs to be informed to take the quickest way, like over the Anderson Bridge and along N Harvard St, to Interstate 90 instead of going on small routes like Soldiers Field Road. If he screws up again and endangers the safety of his passengers, he's getting the pink slip!

[sovrncitizn]

When are we going to do something about these high capacity vehicles? We need to stand up and demand a plan. How many more of these tragedies. How many more children abducted from buses? We need to stand up to the powerful car lobby. Why does anyone need a car that can go faster than 70 mph, That is the fastest you can go. See the Automobile lobby likes to use speed to sell their instruments of death, They don't care about the children that die in fiery crashes. In Georgia just recently a man got drunk got in his car and went on a rampage killing people. When ask why he did it he said he thought he was playing a video game. When you take games like GTA I can see where that would make someone do something like this. An individual can sell their own car to someone, Who could have just gotten out of prison for habitual violator DUI. There is no background check done nothing so we need to close that loophole as well.

[DickVicram]

Video games don't make people do anything they don't want to do.