Senate panel OKs motor-coach safety bill sparked by Bluffton U. crash
The Columbus Dispatch – WASHINGTON—A motor-coach safety bill prompted by the fatal 2007 crash of a bus carrying the Bluffton University baseball team was approved today by a Senate committee.
The bipartisan measure co-authored by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, could come up for a full Senate vote early next year.
"We remember the Bluffton University baseball players and their families as we move one step closer to passing comprehensive motor-coach safety legislation," Brown said in a statement after the bill he wrote with GOP Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas moved out of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
Brown said the bill requires that motor coaches be built with seat belts, stronger roofs and safer windows to "prevent deaths and minimize injuries."
Brown and Hutchison introduced the bill for a second time in March, two years after the crash in Atlanta that killed five Bluffton players, plus the bus driver and his wife.
