A school bus transporting students from Lakeside High School in Hot Springs, Arkansas was involved in a traffic accident on the afternoon of Friday, October 23, 2015, injuring two adults and 10 students on board. The bus was traveling en route to a football game in De Queen at the time of the accident. The vehicle was on U.S. Highway 70 near the small town of Newhope when the incident—whose cause is still not known—took place.
Injured parties were transported to two area hospitals and school officials on site at each location reported that both adults and teens who were hurt in the crash are in stable condition at this time. One of the injured adults was reported to be the head coach of the Lakeside High School football team; the other injured adult was not identified, nor were any of the minors who were hurt in the accident.
The football game, which had been scheduled for Friday evening, was subsequently canceled. The bus that crashed was one of three vehicles transporting students to the game, and uninjured persons were boarded onto the remaining two buses following the incident. Arkansas State Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the accident at this time. It is not yet known whether road conditions, visibility, or other drivers’ actions may have played a role in this crash.
According to data released by the Arkansas State Police Department, there were 461 fatal traffic accidents in the year 2013, the last year for which data were made available. More than 58,000 traffic accidents took place statewide in the same year. In recent years, the Highway Safety Office of Arkansas has outlined annual highway safety plans in an effort to reduce injuries and fatalities on the state’s motorways. Ten-year data trends show that fatal crashes have decreased significantly over time, from 626 fatal accidents in 2004 to 461 in 2013.