WASHINGTON — The National Transportation Safety Board put heavy blame on the Georgia Department of Transportation on Tuesday for an Atlanta bus crash last year that killed five college baseball players, saying confusing highway signs were a primary cause.
The board also cited driver error and a lack of safety features such as seat belts as key factors, fueling calls for tougher standards on U.S. bus operators.
Investigators said the bus driver in the March 2, 2007, accident thought he was staying in an HOV lane when he drove onto an elevated exit ramp, plowing through a stop sign at highway speed and hurtling from an overpass back onto the interstate below. Five members of Ohio’s Bluffton University baseball team, along with the driver and his wife, were killed. The crash injured another 28 people.
