West Virginia Fatal Bus Accident Statistics

West Virginia Fatal Bus Accident Statistics

West Virginia reported a total of 22 fatal crashes involving large trucks or buses for 2015. This number is a slight decrease from the prior year, but it is a significant decline from earlier years. In fact, the total for 2015 was exactly half the total for 2013 which reported 44. This information comes from a report prepared by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

All of these crashes were single fatalities, which involved 22 large vehicles. Only four of them were single-vehicle accidents.

For the purpose of this report, a bus is defined as a vehicle that can carry at least eight passengers and one driver. This includes school buses, city, and transport buses and the newer category of van-buses.

West Virginia has a fatality rate of 11.93 per one million persons as compared to the national average of 11.19. The number is a dramatic decline from 2010, which had a rate of 21.05, almost double the rate for 2015. The population stayed relatively the same for this period, but the number of accidents went down.

According to nationwide statistics, the majority of large truck and bus fatal crashes happen on rural roads when the vehicle is traveling between 50 and 55 mph. Most of them occur during weekdays on dry pavement. Very few occur at intersections or in work zones.

Less than half of the counties in West Virginia reported a fatality involving a large vehicle for 2015. Of those that did, all of them had fewer than six for the year. In the northern part of the state, Marshall County had just one for the year along with Monongalia County while Wetzel County had two. For the southern area, Kanawha was one county with a fatality, and it reported two for the year.