The headline was very eerie for me to read as I checked my local news stories for the day on March 30, 2017.  It was such a sad story and so close to home.  You can read more about it here.  Two children, a boy and a girl, ages 5 and 6 – cousins in fact, were taken out of this world too early when they ran into the road to board their school bus, right in front of a truck.  The truck driver was not charged in the accident.  However, this accident could have been prevented.
 
This particular bus stop had a higher risk than most.  The children were standing at their stop, on the opposite side of the road of the bus.  This pickup forced the children to cross the road to get on the bus.  Not optimal.  Could the bus route have been restructured in order to pick up all students on their side of the road without having to cross?

There were very young children getting on at this stop that had to cross a road with a 55 mph speed zone.  This was not an ideal situation.  Also, where were the parents or guardians? There should’ve been an adult providing supervision to these young children.

With all the above factors contributing to the deadly accident, I submit that the truck driver was driving too fast for the conditions.  Any motorist knows that when you see a big yellow bus, young children may be running across the road and there will be numerous stops.  The yellow lights of the school bus (not the red ones) were on when the children darted across the road.  If the truck driver had been driving with more caution and at much slower speeds, I believe that this terrible accident could have been avoided.

Comments (2)

Joey Slaughter

Joey Slaughter is the owner of Blue Ridge Transport, LLC. Joey has been in the trucking industry since 1992.

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Even though no one was charged in this terrible accident, it definitely could've been prevented.

April 04, 2017 9:48:10 AM

Very sad Joey! I agree the truck driver needed to be driving with more caution and slow down.

April 03, 2017 10:48:05 AM