The driver in a fatal Dec. 30 Oregon bus crash that spurred a lawsuit by two Tacoma-based exchange students was driving too fast at the time of the accident, the U.S. Department of Transportation said Thursday. It banned the man from driving commercial vehicles in the United States.
Several people who survived when the Canadian Mi Joo Tour & Travel bus skidded off an icy Interstate 84 and down a 200-foot embankment said driver Haeng Kyu (James) Hwang had been asked several times to slow down.
Nine people were killed and 39 injured when the bus crashed on the last leg of a Western United States tour.
This month, the DOT ordered Mi Joo Tour & Travel, based in Coquitlam, B.C., to stop operating in the United States saying it allowed its drivers to work too many hours a week and had no system for recording those hours. A lawyer for the company would not comment on whether the company’s initial tour itinerary allowed the drivers to work fewer than 70 hours in a span of seven days.
The exchange students, both from South Korea, sued the company Jan. 6, alleging the driver was fatigued and driving too fast.
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