New report blames teen’s distraction & marijuana use for Chevy vs. CMV crash that killed 6 girls in Oklahoma

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released a final report on a multiple fatality collision that occurred in Oklahoma in 2022.

In a report released on July 18, the NTSB released the results of a years-long investigation into a crash that killed six female Tishomingo High School students ranging in age from 15 to 17.

From the NTSB:

On the afternoon of March 22, 2022, at 12:19 p.m., a 2015 Chevrolet Spark
four-passenger car, occupied by a 16-year-old driver and five teen passengers, was
traveling east on Oklahoma State Highway 22 (SH-22) approaching US Highway 377
(US-377) in Tishomingo, Oklahoma. The car’s two front-seat occupants were wearing
seat belts, but the seat belt status of the four back-seat occupants is unknown. The
flow of traffic on SH-22 was controlled by a stop sign, and vehicles on US-377 had no
traffic controls. At the same time, a 1994 Peterbilt truck-tractor in combination with a
2017 Travis semitrailer (combination vehicle) was traveling south on US-377 at a
calculated speed of 51–53 mph and approaching the intersection with SH-22. Both
US-377 and SH-22 had posted speed limits of 50 mph. The car driver slowed her
vehicle in advance of the intersection to about 1 mph (behind another vehicle) but
did not come to a complete stop at the stop sign or yield to the oncoming
combination vehicle. Instead, the car driver sped up to make a left turn in front of the
combination vehicle. The combination vehicle driver applied braking and steered to
try to avoid the collision, but the combination vehicle struck the driver’s side of the
car; all six occupants in the car were fatally injured. The combination vehicle driver
was not injured in the crash.

NTSB investigators concluded that “the probable cause of the Tishomingo, Oklahoma,
collision was the teen driver’s acceleration through the intersection after briefly
slowing without stopping, due to distraction from having five teen passengers in the
car, limited driving experience, and likely impairment from cannabis.”

Authorities further suggested that teen drivers and the public at large underestimate the risks associated with cannabis-impaired driving. The NTSB recommended more education on marijuana-impaired driving.