Erroneous or faded horizontal signs, no road signals, poor condition of the reflecting traffic signals, possible fuel smuggling or human error are some of the possible causes for yesterday’s bus accident at the Struma motorway in Bulgaria, road safety experts told the Bulgarian National Television (BNT).

The police at the scene of the accident allowed access only to experts and investigators, who work on determining the movement of the bus, the places where it stopped, as well as the speed at which it was moving.

Rumen Dunev says that the bus had a braking trajectory and that the driver of the bus did not fall asleep.

One trajectory is just in front of the island, before the bus hits the island. And the second time just before hitting the second highway barrier. The driver of the bus did not fall sleep. Immediately before the accident there is a repair of the road, where it passes from one lane to another, where the road is narrowed, ie. if he started falling asleep he would have had an accident there, says Dunev.

Dunev claims that the bus caught fire before it hit the highway barrier from the turn.

Dimitar Iliev published a video on social media in which he analyzes the entire route of the bus before the fatal crash, and finds a lack of appropriate road signs, faded signs that do not indicate that there is a place to stop on the highway, and poor condition of the reflecting traffic signals.

The Accident Victims Association, on the other hand, cites fuel smuggling as one of the causes of the fire.

In the interest of the truth, it is a practice to buy flammable things from there (Turkey), including gas cylinders and fuel, because the fuel is currently extremely cheaper than in our country, says Ilija Todorov from the Accident Victims Association.