Rain showers this evening with overcast skies overnight. Low around 50F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%..
Rain showers this evening with overcast skies overnight. Low around 50F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%.
Updated: April 12, 2026 @ 10:25 pm
A state senator has introduced legislation requiring bus drivers and passengers to wear seat belts in response to a fatal 2016 Greyhound crash that killed two people and injured 13 others in San Jose.
State Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, said Senate Bill 20 will close a loophole in federal safety standards that requires new busses to be equipped with seat belts but does not require passengers to wear them.
“Federal regulations require bus drivers to wear seat belts, but the requirement is not in state law, making it unenforceable,” Hill said in a statement. “What’s the point of a seat belt if passengers and drivers aren’t required to wear them?”
The state Senate’s Transportation and Housing Committee voted 12-0 Tuesday in favor of the bill, sending it to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The move comes on the heels of a report issued by the National Transportation Safety Board on Monday finding that seat belts could have prevented deaths and injuries on Jan. 19, 2016, when a Greyhound bus struck a crash attenuator on Highway 101 in San Jose.
The report cited a lack of adequate highway markings around the attenuator as the cause of the crash, which took the lives of 51-year-old Fely Olivera from San Francisco and 76-year-old Maria De Jesus Ortiz Velasquez from Salinas.
The full text of SB20 can be found online at http://bit.ly/2nvMaGW.
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