NEW YORK >> 9 victims of a horrific pre-dawn bus crash — including the driver — are still hospitalized in New York City a day after one of the deadliest highway accidents in years.

Police are investigating driver Ophadell Williams’ claim that he was driven off the road before his bus slid into a sign pole that sheared it end to end, killing 14 people.

Williams told police that a tractor-trailer clipped his bus on a trip from the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut. But state police said witnesses told them Williams was speeding before Saturday morning’s crash on Interstate 95 in the Bronx.

A spokesman for St. Barnabas Hospital said Sunday that Williams is in stable condition there. Two other victims are in stable condition at St. Barnabas. One woman was discharged overnight.

A spokeswoman for Jacobi Medical Center says six patients from the crash are in critical condition there.