Quick Take
UC Santa Cruz closed its investigation into a Dec. 12 bus crash at the base of campus that killed driver Dan Stevenson and injured five student passengers. Investigators said they could find no mechanical cause for the crash and concluded the driver failed to make a “sweeping left-hand curve.”
UC Santa Cruz officials ended their nearly eight-month investigation into a December bus crash on campus that killed driver Dan Stevenson, ruling out mechanical problems with the bus and attributing the accident to the driver’s failure to negotiate a curve in the road.
“Absent any mechanical cause or direct evidence of any distraction, the investigation concluded that Mr. Stevenson failed to input sufficient steering to negotiate the left-hand curve resulting in the crash,” UCSC Police Chief Kevin Domby said in a statement Tuesday.
Just after 8:30 p.m on Dec. 12, the campus loop bus drove off the road near the Cowell Ranch Hay Barn, next to the main entrance of campus at the Coolidge Drive-High Street intersection, and slammed into a lime kiln.
Stevenson, a longtime Santa Cruz Metro driver who began driving for UCSC in 2021, died in hospital on Dec. 29 from injuries sustained in the crash. Five students who were riding the bus when it crashed suffered “moderate to severe injuries,” UCSC officials said. Stevenson’s commercial driver’s license and medical certificate were valid at the time of the crash, Domby wrote.
Following the crash, UCSC pulled all of its 35-foot buses off the road. California Highway Patrol later placed five of the buses out of service for repairs and classified the campus transit operation an “imminent danger to public safety.”
Domby wrote that a CHP accident investigation team inspected the 31-year-old bus involved in the crash for mechanical issues, including the vehicle’s throttle and brake systems.
CHP “found no signs that the bus had damages that could have contributed to the cause,” he wrote. The bus had passed a CHP inspection 90 days before the crash, and had its brakes adjusted and brake pads replaced just days before the fatal accident, Domby added.
UCSC officials said on the day of the crash, Stevenson made what appeared to be several similar loops around the campus without any issues. Less than a minute before the crash, Stevenson’s bus could be seen turning right onto Coolidge Drive from Hagar Drive and heading toward where the road takes a “sweeping left-hand curve” near the campus entrance.
“For an unknown reason, the bus veered off the right roadway edge where it collided with signposts, fencing, and the rock wall of a lime kiln, where it came to a stop,” Domby wrote.
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