According to the California Highway Patrol, the driver of a casino-bound charter bus has been arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs.

The bus crashed and killed eight people.

California authorities are investigating whether prescription or nonprescription drugs were involved in the crash. The bus drifted off a two-lane road before the driver overcorrected and swerved back onto the road before tumbling into a ditch, ejecting some passengers. Other passengers on the bus were rolled and crushed. The bus also had invalid license plates.

“The roof collapsed down, the windows were broken out, and the bus was not only rolled over onto its side, it rolled completely over. It was facing the opposite direction,” said patrol spokesman Patrick Landreth.

This has been at least the eighth accident in the last three years that has involved buses carrying people to and from casinos that have caused death to the passengers. While the bus had “Greyhound” marked on its side, a Greyhound official said their company sold the bus more than two years ago.

Much to the dismay of industry watchdogs, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has delayed its new roof crush standard and has gone back to the drawing board.

The NHTSA has not updated its roof crush standards in 35 years, and a study released earlier this year that found that there is a lower risk of injury to vehicle occupants when the roof of the vehicle is stronger has spurred their revision.

Watchdog groups say most American cars barely meet the new standard and, even so, it is to blame for nearly 10,000 deaths from car and truck rollovers each year.

Currently, a vehicle’s roof only has to support 1.5 times the vehicle’s weight. The proposed update would require roofs to support 2.5 the weight of the entire vehicle, but Congress and consumer advocate groups say the 2.5 standard isn’t strong enough. They claim that most new vehicles already conform to a 2.5 standard and that the proposed standard should be raised to 3.5.

Watchdog groups also object to a provision in the proposed rules that would prevent consumers from suing manufactures after death or injury in a rollover.

43,200 Americans were killed in motor vehicle accidents on highways in the United States in 2005.

One fourth of those fatalities – 10,816 people – died from vehicle rollovers, and rollovers accounted for less than 5 percent of all vehicle accidents in that year. More than 5,000 people suffered from injuries that caused them to become quadriplegic. Injuries and fatalities from rollovers are caused by the roof of the vehicle crushing the passengers, or from glass shattered from the roof crush.

Common sense would say that the the automobile industry is working to cut the amount of injuries – but it is not. In fact, these manufacturers are trying to use a federal agency, the National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), to eliminate the rights of car crash victims seeking justice and compensation from their injuries – injuries that could be prevented with stronger roof crush standards.

Hopefully, with pressure from Congress and consumer advocate groups, the NHTSA will maintain citizen’s access to our court system and revise their standard to more stringent – and safer – levels.