A cautious school bus driver in Florida took to social media to call for motorists to be vigilant about yielding to stopped school buses and not passing them. “I have people running my stop arms daily,” said the driver. Her call for more safety happened after the drive dropped off a student when a vehicle decided to speed around the right side of the bus. The bus driver reported that if she hadn’t been paying attention, the student would have been hit. “I screamed my student’s name and told him to get back on the bus,” said the driver said. “I’ve never spoken to him that way, and he (leaped) back on.” District officials reported that these incidents occur on a daily basis. The driver hopes her message gets through. “I don’t know how people don’t realize that these are their neighbors’ children getting off the bus and they’re putting their lives at risk,” said the driver. She reported the tag number to authorities, but law enforcement can’t cite the driver because they didn’t witness the incident.
School bus drivers are supposed to be hyperaware of their surroundings in order to safely transport children back and forth from class. One Kentucky driver showed off that she did not adhere to the same rules after she allowed a 12-year-old girl to perform a sexual act on a 17-year-old boy while the pair rode the school bus. Obviously, the driver was arrested and changed with facilitation to sexual abuse. However, the trial ended without a final decision as the jury couldn’t reach a verdict. Now prosecutors are determining whether or not to re-try the case, the driver due back in court next week. The 12-year-old girl’s attorneys claimed that she was forced into the act.
Video evidence surrounding the reports of a 6-year old boy being sexually abused by an older student on a school bus have called into question the actuality of the incident, further muddling the case that has embroiled the area. The Diocese of Buffalo stated, “Our investigation of the allegation of abuse, including a review of the videotape, does not support the claim of abuse.” The mother of the victim, though, signed a sworn statement, saying, “The police officers who interviewed my son informed me that they had viewed the video from the bus and that my son’s statements about being bullied and sexually assaulted were consistent with the video tape.” With no clear answers in sight, the New York State Education Commissioner has launched an investigation.
The attorney of a disgraced school bus driver has claimed that a 2015 accident occurred because their client was on prescription drugs for Fibromyalgia. Last December, a Denver-area school bus rolled with eight students aboard. Five students were hospitalized with two serious injuries. Police reported that the school bus driver allegedly told officers that she was taking six different prescription drugs at the time of the crash, one of them being Lyrica, which explicitly states that users should “not drive a car, work with machines, or do other dangerous activities until you know how LYRICA affects you.” The driver reported that she had been on Lyrica for more than a decade to combat her Fibromyalgia symptoms, and only took the drug at night and never before driving a bus. Finally, the driver told officials that the school district new of her condition and her doctor knew Burris was a bus driver before prescribing the drug. The driver passed a urine drug screen for illicit drugs at the hospital after the crash. She also passed mandatory random drug tests administered by the school district.
