A parent is distressed that, following a school bus accident that occurred early on Thursday morning, Dec. 12, parents were not notified.
The accident was minor and no injuries were reported, though the parent believes that guardians should be notified of any and all collisions. Meanwhile, the school states that all appropriate protocols were followed.
At approximately 7:30 last Thursday morning, a bus carrying 19 students clipped the mirror of a bus with no students in it on Hwy 55 near Knifley, according to Superintendent Jason Faulkner. The debris from one of the mirrors then shattered the emergency exit window of the occupied bus (emergency exit windows are intentionally fragile).
Photos from the incident taken by students show glass on the floor following the impact. Upon inspection from the bus driver, no injuries were seen. The driver then moved the bus out of the area of collision to await for another bus to take the students on to school.
Parent Ethan Hall became alerted to the incident from a phone call with his daughter. According to Hall, when he checked the Life360 app that tracks his daughter, it recorded the bus’s top speed as 66 miles per hour. However, even the Life360 website says that the app’s ability to gauge speed is influenced by many factors out of its control, such as strength of the phone’s reception and any extrinsic forces, which would normally affect the phone’s GPS or signal.
Simply put, a phone’s GPS is not as reliable as, for instance, a vehicle’s own speedometer or a police officer’s radar gun.
“I have screenshots from my daughter‘s Life360 (from) the time that she left the house to the time that it took to reach the area that the bus driver pulled over after the accident where he was driving 66 miles an hour. Not to mention that after the accident, he pulled back out and proceeded to the school and got up to 61 miles an hour,” he said in one of several posts made about the incident to Facebook.
In these posts (some of which garnered several shares, comments and “angry” reactions), Hall’s main contention was that parents were not alerted to the incident and that emergency services were allegedly not contacted by the bus driver.
On the other hand, the school states that given the minor nature of the accident, all protocols were properly followed by the driver and by the school’s transportation department.
Transportation Director Steve Burton said the bus driver made the decision to continue moving as they were parked at the top of a hill and he was concerned about the safety of remaining there. He parked again a short distance from the impact site.
Faulkner and Burton said the driver found only one student who had what he believed to be glass in her hoodie. The student remained asleep during the collision and only awoke when the driver removed the debris from her hoodie.
“We called and informed the parent that this happened, but there was not a scratch on her,” Faulkner said.
Ultimately, as glass was still in the floor from the emergency window, the driver and Burton opted to send another bus to pick up the students.
“We did everything in the world to keep those babies’ safe. We checked them all out. We did everything we are supposed to. Everything is filed. If anyone wants to do a public records request, it’s all right there,” Burton stated.
By Kenley Godby
kenley@adairvoice.com
