Bus crash leaves three people dead

COLORADO CITY, Texas -- A Greyhound bus crashed into a tractor-trailer in central Texas early Sunday, killing three passengers and injuring about two dozen others, officials said.

The bus was on Interstate 20, traveling from Los Angeles to Dallas, when it hit the tractor-trailer as the truck merged into traffic from a rest stop, said Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Erin Hale. She said all three people killed in the crash were at the front of the bus.

About two dozen other passengers were taken to local hospitals. Hale did not know the extent of their injuries.

"Since nobody wears seat belts except for the driver on a bus, it makes things more serious when a wreck does happen," she said. She said the bus driver, whose name has not been released, was expected to survive.

The crash occurred just outside the small town of Loraine, about 250 miles west of Dallas.

The bus was directly behind a tractor-trailer on the interstate about 5:30 a.m. when the second tractor-trailer began slowly entering the highway, Hale said. The first truck pulled into another lane to make room, but the Greyhound driver didn't have time to move, she said. The weather was clear at the time.

Lynn Brown, a spokeswoman for Greyhound bus lines in Dallas, said the company was attempting to notify family members of those involved and had sent a crisis team to the scene. She said she knew of injuries to at least 22 of the 35 passengers on the bus.

"Our first priority is to make sure the victims and their families are taken care of," she said.

Greyhound Lines, Inc. is the largest provider of intercity bus transportation. The company has more than 18,000 daily departures from 2,600 cities across the country.