17 injured in New Jersey bus crash

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SOUTH BRUNSWICK, N.J., Aug. 25 (UPI) -- Seventeen people were injured, three critically, in a bus-truck chain-reaction crash on the New Jersey Turnpike, officials said.

The driver of the DC Trails charter bus, en route to Washington from New York City with 55 passengers, was hospitalized in critical condition along with two passengers, a State Police spokesman told The (Newark N.J). Star-Ledger. Fourteen other passengers were taken to hospitals with minor injuries.

A spokesman for the New Jersey Turnpike Authority said the Wednesday morning crash in South Brunswick, N.J., was the result of two other crashes on the turnpike. State Police said the charter bus came upon heavy traffic and struck the rear of a tractor-trailer rig that had apparently rear-ended another truck that had slowed down.

It was the second bus accident this year along that stretch of the turnpike, the newspaper said.

The American Bus Association said the bus driver, Andy Lynch, 52, of Chesapeake, Va., has 12 years experience and a good safety record. The safety record of DC Trails, based in northern Virginia, was in the top 25 percent of companies inspected over the past two years, the newspaper said.