Coach Company of Lima, Ohio. A company owned by industrial conglomerate Sheller-Globe Corporation, Superior manufactured the school bus body that was installed on the Ford B700 chassis. The vehicle was certified as a "school bus" with an effective build date of March 23, 1977, the date associated with the construction of the Ford chassis (as required by federal regulations). Both the vehicle type and the build date would later serve as important legal distinctions. The bus was manufactured on March 23, 1977, just nine days before four major federal safety standards were to take effect for school bus production. In addition to upgraded rollover protection, school buses produced on or after April 1, 1977 were required to be designed with improved structural integrity in body joints, better seating protection in crashes, and improved fuel system protection (to reduce spills and fires). The completed bus was delivered in time for use during the 197778 school year, and served ten years in use as a school bus. Radcliff Assembly of God acquired the used school bus as surplus from the Meade County school district, and it had been owned by the church for about one year as a church bus. In July 1987, the church successfully made the same round trip with the bus to Kings Island. Along with short local moves on school days, the church also drove the bus successfully on several other long trips. It was maintained regularly by mechanically-inclined church members, including a civilian motor pool supervisor from nearby Fort Knox. A week before the 1988 Kings Island trip, the bus received two new tires of a good commercial quality; the front-end suspension and steering components were also examined at that time. The 11-year old vehicle was considered to be in good mechanical condition on May 14, 1988. Trip On the trip, the bus was driven by John Pearman, a part-time associate pastor of the church who was a local court clerk. The group left the church early that morning and traveled uneventfully to the park. They spent the whole day and early evening at Kings Island, then boarded the bus and began traveling out of Ohio and back into Northern Kentucky toward Radcliff. After about an hour, they stopped to fill the 60-gallon (227-litre) fuel tank with gasoline, then resumed the trip southward. Collision At 10:55 p.m., while heading south on Interstate 71 outside of Carrollton, Kentucky,