Many of the school bus accidents recently investigated by the Board have involved large, heavy trucks. This is happening at a time when trucks are bigger and more powerful than ever. In the mid 1960s, the typical highway semi-trailer was 35 feet long. Today's standard trailers are 45 to 53 feet long. Triple combination unit trailers can extend over 90 feet.
Trailers are a full foot wider now.
In addition, we now have twice as many tractor trailers operating on our highways as we did 40 years ago and that's just the articulated trucks. At the same time, our automobile population has tripled. As an example, in September, the Safety Board launched an investigation into a school bus-large truck collision in Holmdel, New Jersey. A 67,000-pound dump truck struck a large school bus at an intersection. The truck first crashed into the school bus's left side by the driver's window, and then again along the left side, with the buckboard of the dump truck penetrating the bus' side wall.