Kempsey bus crash
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Kempsey bus crash | |
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Details | |
Date | 22 December 1989 02:40 |
Location | McCafferty's Coaches Trans City Express |
Statistics | |
Vehicles | 2 |
Deaths | 35 |
Injured | 41 |
The Kempsey bus crash killed 35 people and injured 41 on the
Crash
The impact snapped seats from their anchor bolts. Seats and passengers were thrown forward in the vehicles with a terrific amount of force, which also trapped people and their luggage against the fronts of the buses. The force of the impact left the
A fleet of
Coronial inquest and aftermath
The coroner (Kevin Waller) endorsed the recommendation he made following the Grafton bus crash two months earlier, that the Pacific Highway be upgraded to dual carriageway between Newcastle and the Queensland border.[1]
The New South Wales and Commonwealth governments committed to carry out the required work, with an initial promised completion date of 2006. This target never came close to being met; at July 2008, only 267 kilometres (or 39%) of the route had been upgraded to dual carriageway standard, with 87 kilometres of divided road under construction and 325 kilometres of the highway still a single carriageway.
As of May 2016, following a sustained upgrade program, 437 kilometres (65%) of the highway between Hexham and the Queensland border was dual carriageway (either at freeway or arterial road standards), with 240 kilometres of single carriageway remaining to be upgraded.[2] The final section was completed in December 2020, bringing an end to the project after 24 years.[3]
The coroner also recommended research into coach seats, seat anchorages and seatbelts. Better emergency exits for coaches were also recommended, as rescuers were hindered in their initial efforts to enter the wreckage by the positioning of the exits 2.4m from the ground.
Following the collision and despite the extensive damage incurred, both coaches were rebuilt by
The McCafferty's coach from the Kempsey crash was involved in another crash exactly 14 years later, in the early hours of 22 December 2003. On this occasion the coach was travelling south towards Rockhampton on the Bruce Highway when it was involved in a head-on collision with a truck. On this occasion there were no fatalities, with six people suffering minor injuries. However, the coach was damaged beyond economic repair and was written off.
This collision and the Grafton bus crash eight weeks earlier were described as "arguably Australia’s most catastrophic examples of high consequence/low probability incidents in the bus industry" in a bus safety discussion document.[4]
The section of the Pacific Highway where the collision occurred was bypassed in May 2016 by a dual carriageway as part of the upgrades recommended by the coroner[5][6] and is now named Macleay Valley Way.
References
- The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 28 February 2016.
- Roads & Maritime ServicesMay 2016
- ^ "Pacific Highway upgrade finally finished". ABC News. 17 December 2020. Retrieved 18 December 2020.
- ^ Improving Safety Management in Australia’s Bus Industry National Transport Commission 2008
- ^ Frederickton to Eungai Roads & Maritime Services
- ^ Deadly stretch of Pacific Highway to be bypassed today, 27 years after bus crash ABC News 16 May 2016