Tragedy struck a Texas town when the lives of several young softball players were tragically lost in a bus crash. Nearly a week after a semi-truck struck a bus, killing the young softball players, the accident has caused such emotional distress for everyone involved that the driver of the semi-truck took his own life. While this is a heartbreaking story from multiple angles, the families of the young women who were lost say that they intend to sue the company that made the bus carrying their daughters and their teammates.
In an interview, the families of the softball players repeatedly stated that they never intended to prove guilt on behalf of the driver who crossed over the interstate and struck the bus.
The families maintain that their lawsuit is more about getting these unsafe buses off the streets. The families went and looked at the bus that was carrying their daughters and their teammates and immediately decided that the bus simply wasn’t safe enough for anyone to ride on.
The lawyer for the families, Todd Tracy, has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the families against the bus manufacturer, called Champion Bus Company. Tracy and the families said that an investigation of the bus demonstrated that the materials involved in making the bus included plywood, styrofoam, and metal pieces. While these materials might raise eyebrows under any circumstances, they raise even more questions when further investigation revealed that these pieces were not even welded together. Without welding the pieces together, the bus does not provide as strong of a structure to withstand an impact. It certainly wouldn’t be able to hold up well against an impact from an object the size of a semi-truck. Perhaps this contributed to the tragic loss of life that occurred in the tragic bus accident.
The families have stated that their goal is to prevent accidents like this one from ever happening again, particularly to students. The mothers believe that no student should ever have to ride on a bus as unsafe as the one that carried their daughters. If the families win the lawsuit, they plan to use the money to build a brand new softball stadium.
