They say freeways, despite the higher speed limits, are the safest place for drivers, and that's because they are generally straight, with long bends and, most importantly, they have a central divider to keep the two directions of traffic away from each other.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work out the way it's supposed to. And since there is a solid object between the two lanes, there's absolutely no way for the drivers to see what's coming until it is too late.
That's exactly what happened here in the kind of accident that couldn't have been prevented by the bus driver no matter what he did. The footage from inside the cabin shows he steers to the left the moment he sees the car flying in, but we all know what half a turn on the steering wheel of a bus means: close to nothing.
The driver in the airborne hatchback has been identified as 62-year-old Masamitsu Ikuma, and he was headed west on the Tomei Expressway in Shinshiro, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. Sadly, he was pronounced dead on the spot by the rescuers, but the good news is there were no casualties among the 47 people on the bus.
However, six of them suffered various types of fractures, and only two walked away without any kind of injury, even though none of those hurt had life-threatening lesions. Witnesses told Japan Times the bus driver had a wound to his head and couldn't move before the paramedics arrived. The pictures of the aftermath show the car was wedged into the front of the bus and needed to be taken out using a crane.
This kind of accident shows that bad things can happen even if you're always alert, but also how important it is to do everything in your power to increase your chances of survivability. In the case of the passengers, that simply meant staying seated and fastening their seatbelts.
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