Quick Take
Six months after the on-campus bus crash that led to the death of driver Dan Stevenson, UC Santa Cruz officials say they're still investigating the cause. Through a public records request, Lookout obtained maintenance records that shed little light on what might have happened.
UC Santa Cruz officials say they’re still investigating the cause of the fatal December on-campus bus crash that led to the death of the driver, Dan Stevenson.
Campus spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason told Lookout on Tuesday that the investigation “has not yet concluded. We will share more when it does.”
On Dec. 12, just after 8:30 p.m., UCSC officials say the bus drove off the road and ran into a lime kiln near the base of the campus and the Cowell Ranch Hay Barn, adjacent to the main entrance of campus at the Coolidge Drive-High Street intersection. In addition to Stevenson, five other people on the bus were injured in the crash.
In the days and months after the crash, UC Santa Cruz officials have shared little about the circumstances that led to the incident. However, the bus crash elevated long-standing criticism and calls on the university by student activists and union workers to improve the conditions of the buses and to purchase new buses.
Several weeks after the crash, Lookout Santa Cruz submitted a records request to the university for the entire folder of inspections and reports about the bus that was involved in the accident, as well as the training documents related to Stevenson. In April, the university released 600 pages of records for the bus, and in June it released 105 pages of records for Stevenson.
The bus records show the 31-year-old bus involved in the fatal crash appeared to have worsening maintenance issues for the last several years it was running. However, records show, in its final regular inspection a week before the accident, there were no major concerns listed.
UC Santa Cruz bought the bus – dubbed Bus 7924 – and seven others from the San Mateo County Transit District in August 2010 for a total of $96,000, according to records. The 35-foot bus is a 1993 Gillig and had 329,206 miles on it when it was purchased. It can hold 34 passengers.
It’s not clear if Stevenson did a pre-trip inspection the day of the crash or if the university didn’t provide the inspection file to Lookout. Abby Butler, another UCSC spokesperson, declined to say whether or not he did a pre-trip inspection: “The investigation is ongoing and we don’t have any further information to share, at this time.”
The documents do show that 90-day inspections were occurring starting from shortly after the bus was purchased and up until just one week before the crash in December. Sometimes the inspections happened on the 90-day schedule and sometimes they didn’t.
None of the 90-day inspection reports showed that the bus had defective equipment. Some of the pre-trip forms do show issues; the seriousness of some of those issues is unclear.
Work order invoices billed to UCSC’s Fleet Services department – which does the majority of the maintenance work on the shuttles – show that there were often repairs and replacements to bus parts. It’s not clear why some of the defects weren’t listed in the inspection forms. Butler also declined to answer questions about the inspection reports and defective equipment.
The San Mateo County Transit District owned and operated Bus 7924 for its first 17 years. Inspections and reports about the bus during that time weren’t included in the records provided to Lookout, but one form shows that the engine was replaced in 2006 – which the university has also confirmed on an FAQ page on its website. There, the university says, the bus and other 1993 buses also had their transmissions replaced and had their exhaust filter systems modernized.
Stevenson’s records show he had no violations and no license suspensions or revocations. His Class B license was issued May 23, 2022, and was scheduled to expire July 26, 2027. The majority of the 105 pages provided to Lookout from Stevenson’s training file is the Transportation and Parking Services employee handbook, which he was required to sign.
The documents also include the TAPS emergency action plan and injury and illness prevention program and several sheets of driver signatures showing they participated in safety training.
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