Metro East Sun

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has published its final report on the Greyhound bus crash that occurred in July 2023 on I-70 near Highland, Illinois. The accident resulted in the deaths of three passengers and injuries to more than a dozen others. U.S. Representative Mike Bost from Illinois highlighted the NTSB's findings, which pointed to a severe shortage of accessible truck parking as a contributing factor to the collision with a tractor-trailer parked on an offramp.

Representative Bost commented, "I grew up in a family trucking business and have been shouting from the rooftops for years about America’s dangerous shortage of truck parking spaces." He further explained, "When exhausted truckers are forced to choose between pushing that extra mile to find safe parking or pull over on the shoulder of busy interstates and offramps, you’ve got a recipe for disaster. That’s exactly what we witnessed here in Southern Illinois."

Bost expressed hope that the NTSB's report would generate momentum in Congress for his proposed legislation aimed at expanding safe and accessible parking options for large trucks across the country. His Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act seeks to provide competitive funding through the U.S. Department of Transportation for constructing new commercial truck parking facilities.

Although this legislation was approved by the House Transportation Committee during the last Congress, it did not receive a vote in the full House. Bost has reintroduced the bill this year with hopes that it will be included in the Surface Transportation Reauthorization bill expected to be considered by the House later this year.

A summary of the NTSB report is available online.