Fatigued Driver’s Error Is Cited in Bus Crash That Injured Rodgers

The National Transportation Safety Board has listed driver error as the probable cause of the bus crash that injured Angel Manager Buck Rodgers and 12 others on the New Jersey Turnpike in May of 1992.

The board released its findings Friday, saying, “The probable cause of this accident was the failure of the fatigued intercity bus driver to keep his vehicle on the roadway.”

The report found no evidence to support Carl Venetz’s claim that he lost control of the bus while steering it away from an object in the roadway at 1:50 a.m. on May 21 in Deptford Township, N.J., as the Angels were making the 170-mile trip from New York to Baltimore.

Rodgers, 54, is seeking $25 million in damages against Venetz; Kevah Konner, Inc., of Pinebrook, N.J., an interstate motor carrier that owned the bus, and Campus Travel and its subsidiaries, which had a contract with the Angels to provide bus service but farmed it out to Kevah Konner.