The National Safety Commission found the Kempsey and Grafton crashes were “arguably Australia’s most catastrophic examples of high consequence/low probability incidents in the bus industry”.

It is now illegal to drive a heavy vehicle while intoxicated by drugs or alcohol. The truck driver, who died in the crash, was found to have an extraordinary high level of ephedrine in his blood. Two months earlier and only 200 kilometres away from Kempsey, 21 people died, and 22 people were seriously injured, when a semi-trailer crashed into a coach on the same highway near Grafton. Thirty-five people died, including two bus drivers, and another 41 were injured, when the driver of a bus bound for Sydney fell asleep at the wheel and collided with the coach bound for Brisbane.

The deadliest bus crash in Australian history was a few days before Christmas in 1989, when two tourist coaches crashed head-on near Kempsey, on the Pacific Highway at Clybucca Flat. Thirty-five people were killed when two tourist bushes crashed on the Pacific Highway north of Kempsey.

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