A semi-trailer truck is the combination of a tractor unit and one or more semi-trailers to carry freight. A semi-trailer attaches to the tractor with a type of hitch called a fifth wheel.
The Konginkangas bus disaster was a major road traffic crash on 19 March 2004, outside the village of Konginkangas in Äänekoski, Central Finland. At 02:08 local time, a bus transporting 38 passengers, most of them youths, to the Rukatunturi skiing center for an alpine ski trip crashed into a full-trailer truck carrying heavy paper rolls weighing about 61.5 tonnes total. The crash occurred on Finnish national road 4 (E75) 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of Äänekoski, and left the bus driver and 22 passengers dead; fourteen were injured. The executive director of the youth travel company was among those who perished in the crash. Most of the victims were killed immediately by the paper rolls ejected into the bus. The truck driver was uninjured.
The Carrollton bus collision occurred on May 14, 1988, on Interstate 71 in unincorporated Carroll County, Kentucky. The collision involved a former school bus in use by a church youth group and a pickup truck driven by an alcohol-impaired driver. The head-on collision was the deadliest incident involving drunk driving and the third-deadliest bus crash in U.S. history. Of the 67 people on the bus, there were 27 fatalities in the crash, the same number as the 1958 Prestonsburg bus disaster, and behind the 1976 Yuba City bus disaster (29) and 1963 Chualar bus crash (32).
On March 15, 1999, Amtrak's southbound City of New Orleans passenger train collided with a semi-trailer truck in the village of Bourbonnais, Illinois, United States. Most of the train derailed, killing eleven people. A National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation into the accident attributed the cause to the truck driver trying to beat the train across a grade crossing. The NTSB's recommendations from the accident included increased enforcement of grade crossing signals, the installation of train event recorders at all new or improved grade crossings, and procedures to provide emergency responders with accurate lists of all crew members and passengers aboard trains. The city of Bourbonnais erected a memorial near the site to commemorate those killed in the accident.
The Grafton bus crash killed 21 people and injured 22 on the Pacific Highway near Grafton, Australia on 20 October 1989 when a semi-trailer truck collided with a Sunliner Express coach operating an express service from Sydney to Brisbane. At the time, it was the worst in Australian road transport history in terms of number of deaths. Two months later it was surpassed by the Kempsey bus crash that killed 35 passengers.
The 1995 Fox River Grove bus–train collision was a grade crossing collision that killed seven students riding aboard a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois, on the morning of October 25, 1995. The school bus, driven by a substitute driver, was stopped at a traffic light with the rearmost portion extending onto a portion of the railroad tracks when it was struck by a Metra Union Pacific Northwest Line train, train 624 en route to Chicago.
The Gilchrest Road crossing accident was a grade crossing incident that occurred on March 24, 1972, in the town of Clarkstown, New York, between the hamlets of Valley Cottage and Congers, roughly 25 miles (40 km) northwest of New York City. Five students from Valley Cottage were killed, and 44 others were injured.
The Boys in Red accident[a] occurred on January 12, 2008, outside the city of Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada. A semi-trailer truck and a van carrying the basketball team from Bathurst High School collided, which killed seven students, the wife of the coach, and injured four other occupants in the van. It was the deadliest transportation accident in New Brunswick since 1989, when a logging truck tipped onto a hayride in Cormier Village, killing 13. It was the deadliest bus accident involving a sports team in Canada until the Humboldt Broncos bus crash in April 2018.
The World Wide Tours bus crash took place at about 5:30 a.m. on March 12, 2011, in the southbound lanes of the New England Thruway segment of Interstate 95 within Pelham Bay Park near Split Rock at the border between the Bronx and Pelham Manor, New York. The bus was returning to Chinatown, Manhattan, from the Mohegan Sun casino in Uncasville, Connecticut. It swerved and collided with a metal sign pole, which ripped through it and tore off most of its roof. Thirteen passengers died at the scene, two died at hospitals, and all seventeen others on board were injured.
The 2015 Oxnard train derailment occurred on February 24, 2015, at 5:44 a.m. local time when a Metrolink passenger train collided with a truck that a driver had mistakenly turned from Rice Avenue onto the tracks and became stuck. After the impact, the train derailed at Oxnard, California, United States. As a result of the crash, the train engineer died from his injuries a week later and 32 passengers and crew members were injured. The truck driver exited his vehicle and ran from the scene prior to the crash; he sustained minor injuries that were unrelated to the crash sequence.
The 2015 Halifax train crash occurred on March 9, 2015, when an Amtrak passenger train derailed in Halifax, North Carolina, after colliding with a truck carrying an oversize load that was obstructing the line at a grade crossing. There were no fatalities, but 55 people were injured.
The Crozet, Virginia train crash was a railway accident that occurred on January 31, 2018. A chartered Amtrak train named Congressional Special Train 923, following the route normally used by the Amtrak Cardinal and carrying a group of politicians and lawmakers from the Republican Party, collided with a garbage truck at a level crossing at Lanetown Road in Crozet, Virginia, 12 miles (19 km) west of Charlottesville, Virginia. The train was chartered by Republican lawmakers for transportation from Washington Union Station to an annual retreat at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Several politicians brought their spouses and children with them for the trip; no members of the general public were passengers.
A school bus crash occurring on September 21, 1989, in Alton, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley region, resulted in the deaths of 21 junior and senior high school students by drowning or causes related to being asphyxiated. A bottling truck collided with the school bus, causing the bus to enter a caliche pit filled with water. The driver of the truck was acquitted of negligent homicide charges. The payoffs from lawsuits compensating for the deaths of the students caused division in the Alton community. A middle school that was built in Alton was named in honor of the deceased.
The 2020 Pennsylvania Turnpike crash occurred in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania, on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in icy conditions at around 3:40 am on January 5, 2020. It was sparked by a 52-passenger tour bus traveling downhill, which struck an embankment and flipped on its side, causing a chain-reaction crash of two UPS trucks, a FedEx truck, and at least one other vehicle. Five people were killed, at least 60 people were injured, and an 86-mile (138 km) stretch of the Pennsylvania Turnpike was shut down in both directions as the crash was being investigated.
The 1990 Interstate 75 fog disaster was a traffic collision that occurred on the morning of December 11, 1990, on a section of Interstate 75 (I-75) near Calhoun, Tennessee, during dense fog which obscured the visibility of motorists. The collisions occurred in an area where fog is common and had been the site of previous multi-vehicle collisions caused by poor visibility. It consisted of a series of multi-vehicle collisions that ultimately involved 99 vehicles, and resulted in 12 deaths and 42 injuries. It was reportedly the largest motor vehicle collision in United States history when it occurred, in terms of the number of vehicles, and was the largest and second deadliest vehicle accident in Tennessee history behind the 1972 Bean Station bus-truck collision, which killed 14. The disaster resulted in multiple safety improvements to the section of I-75 where the collision occurred.
The 1972 Bean Station bus-truck collision was a head-on collision involving a double-decker Greyhound bus and a tractor-trailer on U.S. Route 11W in Grainger County, Tennessee, that occurred near the town of Bean Station on the morning of May 13, 1972.
