The Yuba City bus disaster occurred on May 21, 1976 in Martinez, California. The accident occurred at 11 a.m., as the bus, a 1950 Crown bus on its way to Miramonte High School in Orinda for a friendship day involving the choruses of Yuba City High School and Miramonte High School, took the off-ramp southbound from the Martinez-Benicia Bridge for a brief rest stop. The bus fell approximately 30 feet and landed upside-down, crushing the roof to the bottom of the bus windows. 29 of the 51 passengers on board were killed, including twenty-eight students and one teacher.
Although details were initially slow to appear, local, regional, and national newspapers and newsmagazines soon picked up the story.
To date, the Yuba City bus disaster is the worst bus crash in United States history involving a single bus.
Famous quotes containing the words city, bus and/or disaster:
“Without infringing on the liberty we so much boast, might we not ask our professional Mayor to call upon the smokers, have them register their names in each ward, and then appoint certain thoroughfares in the city for their use, that those who feel no need of this envelopment of curling vapor, to insure protection may be relieved from a nuisance as disgusting to the olfactories as it is prejudicial to the lungs.”
—Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)
“There was an old man from Darjeeling
Who got on a bus bound for Ealing.
It said at the door,
“Please don’t spit on the floor,”
So he carefully spat on the ceiling.”
—Anonymous.
“When wine is spilled with accident, death and disaster hasten.”
—Joseph O’Donnell. Clifford Sanforth. Ah Ling, Murder by Television, after he accidentally spills wine on Mrs. Houghland (1935)