TransLink bus involved in fatal collision in Washington state
Posted March 25, 2019 2:12 pm.
Last Updated March 25, 2019 2:19 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A transit bus destined for Vancouver was involved in a fatal collision with a car about 45 kilometres away from Seattle on Friday.
The Washington State Patrol’s Major Accident Investigation Team is investigating the collision, which happened just before 6 a.m. on March 22.
The driver of the car was killed and his female passenger taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries. A photo of the crash shows front-end damage to the bus and the rear end of a car.
There were no passengers on the bus at the time of the accident. TransLink says it was expecting to receive the bus as part of the new fleet but won’t comment further as there is an ongoing investigation into the incident.
In a statement, TransLink told NEWS 1130: “We were deeply saddened to hear about the news. We can confirm that we were expecting to receive the bus as part of our new fleet, but we are not able to provide any further information as it is a police investigation.”
In a tweet, TransLink said the driver of the bus was not a Coast Mountain Bus Company employee.
The car was stopped in a lane of Interstate 90’s Snoqualmie Pass when the collision happened, Washington police say, and the bus struck the vehicle while making a lane change.
Trooper Rick Johnson was on the scene shortly after the crash and said the bus was coming from Minnesota.
He tells NEWS 1130 the bus driver, a woman, was not hurt.
“There was no impairment on the bus driver, so from what I understand there most likely will not be any criminal charges. That’s what I was told by the detective,” Johnson says.
