At least nine dead in Texas bus collision involving student athletes

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: BBC

At least nine people are dead after a vehicle carrying members of a New Mexico university's golf team collided with a pickup truck in Texas, the school said.

Nine passengers including the team's coach were on the bus involved in the fatal crash, the University of the Southwest said in a statement.

Two passengers from the bus are in critical condition.

A driver and passenger in the pickup were also both killed.
...
"For unknown reasons, the Dodge pickup- drove into the northbound lane and struck the Ford passenger van head-on," Mr Blanco said. "Both vehicles caught fire and burned."


Read more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-60766981

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Some people will have lost 7 friends at once. Horrible.

[Torchlight]

1. Andrews county is in far west Texas, on the TX/NM border (just for context).

Far west TX, 10:00pm on a Tuesday night a pick up on the wrong side of the road. I'm going to guess a twelve pack of Pabst or Lone Star was an enabler for the accident.

[Thomas Hurt]

2. exactly or they fell asleep.

[Achilleaze]

3. Happens on the long stretches...

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. It says just after 8pm

and CNN says 8:17: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/16/us/usw-golf-team-bus-crash/index.html

It wasn't all that late.

[Torchlight]

5. Drinking and driving after dark is a hobby for a lot

of my fellow Texans.

An almost-official rite of passage for male teens in the early eighties. Was an idiot (a dammed lucky idiot) myself more than a few times when I got my leaners permit. I tend to default to drunk driving being the cause when I read about wrong way drivers.

And if my guess is wrong (happens more often than not), it won't be the first time.

That said, I often get confused when it comes to military time. Should have used my fingers.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. They think a 13 year old was driving, at 75 mph, when using a spare tire that failed

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/17/us/usw-golf-team-van-crash-thursday/index.html

13 yo driving because the dad was drunk, perhaps?

[inthewind21]

6. Drinking and Driving

anytime is SOP in Texas. "Hold my beer and watch this"

[jmowreader]

7. I went to school in San Angelo in 1986

One of the first things we were told was, “in Texas it is legal to drink beer while you drive.”

Now it’s a Class C misdemeanor, but I figure the cops wait until you did something they can haul you in for before they notice it in the rural parts of the One Star State.