PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — The National Transportation Safety Board is recommending tougher safety regulations after an investigation into the fatal crash between a party bus and a semi-truck on I-64 in Williamsburg.

The Dec. 16, 2022, crash left three people dead and several others injured when the semi-truck slammed into the rear of the much slower moving bus. The bus was going between 20 to 25 miles per hour at the time, well below the 70 mph speed limit, which contributed to the crash, the NTSB said.

The truck driver meanwhile didn’t brake or take any evasive action, which the NTSB said was due to fatigue from excess driving time and the lack of opportunity for sleep. The NTSB said it found the truck’s carrier, Triton Logistics, created fake driver accounts in its electronic logging device system, which allowed drivers to go beyond the federal regulations for driving time.

The NTSB is now issuing these six new recommendations following the crash, including:

  • The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration should strengthen electronic logging device requirements to prevent opportunities for the creation of fake driver accounts.
  • The Commonwealth of Virginia should offer management safety guidance to new intrastate motor carrier licensees covering license class, drug and alcohol testing, fatigue management, vehicle maintenance, and safe commercial vehicle operation.
  • Triton Logistics should implement a process to regularly verify the accuracy of drivers’ records of duty, implement a robust fatigue management program, and proactively use onboard inward- and forward-facing video event recording to improve driver training.
  • The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance should use this crash to educate its members on the importance of safeguarding the electronic logging device system to prevent falsification of information.

They’re also reiterating these recommendations:

  • The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration should complete the development and application of performance standards for the assessment of forward collision avoidance systems in commercial vehicles. NHTSA should also require that all buses and trucks over 10,000 pounds be equipped with onboard video recorders that record parametric data associated with an event.
  • The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration should provide guidance to motor carriers on the use of onboard video recordings to ensure driver compliance with regulations and safe operations.

You can read the full report here.

This is a breaking article and will be updated.