Last month, we reported that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) closed an item on its “Most Wanted Safety List” regarding brake pedal misapplication in school buses and filed the response by the student transportation industry as “acceptable.” But the case is not closed as far as a lawsuit against the school district goes.
The suit, which includes eight claims, seeks damages from the Pennsbury School District and was set to begin on Wednesday, nearly five years removed from an out-of-control school bus hopping a curb at a Pennsbury High School in Fallsington Township, Pa., and struck a group of students including then 17-year-old Ashley Zauflik. The student’s leg was amputated as a result.
It remains to be seen how long this civil suit lasts as the school district admitted that its bus driver caused the crash by mistakenly applying his foot to the accelerator when attempting the shift gears. The district reportedly had also offered a settlement of $500,000.
The driver, John McCleary, continues to say that he did not mistakenly apply the accelerator, as the NTSB crash investigation concluded, and that there was something mechanically wrong with the bus. McCleary was put on administrative leave after the crash and resigned from the district last year.
The school district remains the only defendent in the civil lawsuit as claims against McCleary and four school bus vendors were dimissed.
See the full set of recommendations made by the NTSB to NASDPTS, NAPT and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as a result of its investigations into the Pennsbury High School crash as well as an incident of sudden acceleration with a school bus in Liberty, Mo., in 2005
