#DRUNK BUS DRIVER IN PA 2019 DRIVERS#
“Certainly, we all know impaired driving is a big problem, but to have it occur with school bus drivers is amazing.” “It’s pretty shocking,” said Russ Martin, government relations director for the Governors Highway Safety Association. Many state agencies weren’t able to compile information on impaired school bus drivers. Problem largely untracked: 'This needs to change' Stateline found that at least 260 drivers in five states failed or refused to take the tests since 2015. Other impaired school bus drivers have been identified through random drug and alcohol screenings, sometimes after they’ve finished their routes.Though most of the 118 cases involved alcohol, about a third of the drivers allegedly had taken drugs.In all, the school bus crashes injured nearly three dozen students, some seriously enough to require a trip to a hospital emergency room.Among them: a driver in New Mexico who admitted to police that he downed several tall cans of Coors Light that morning before smashing his bus into a tree after nearly driving off a bridge with 25 petrified children on board, and a driver in Wisconsin high on pain and anti-anxiety pills who veered off the road and careened into a cornfield with four students on the bus. More than a third of the cases involved a bus crash.Some were hauled off in handcuffs others were issued citations and not allowed to continue their route. Police caught at least 118 drivers from California to Massachusetts operating a school bus while allegedly impaired.A monthslong Stateline review of police records, court filings and news media reports in the past five years found: Highway safety advocates said officials need to do a better job monitoring drivers entrusted with children’s lives. None of these incidents resulted in a bus driver or passenger fatality, and most of the students were not injured. School transportation groups point out that buses are the safest means for students to get to school, and most drivers would never put children at risk. “We are thankful all our students arrived home safely,” Zorn said.ĬNN’s Carma Hassan, Hollie Silverman, Jeremy Grisham and Andy Rose contributed to this report.Nationwide, more than 1,620 schoolchildren in 38 states have been placed in harm’s way since 2015 by bus drivers arrested or cited for allegedly driving while impaired by alcohol or drugs – a situation that despite its dangers goes largely untracked by government officials, a Stateline investigation found.
The school has put “an improved process” in place for screening bus drivers every day before they start their routes, Longview Public Schools Superintendent Dan Zorn said in a statement Friday.Ī transportation representative from the state’s education department is also “reviewing district bus operations and may have other safety measures to consider for implementation,” the statement said.
#DRUNK BUS DRIVER IN PA 2019 UPDATE#
Maccarone was arrested and charged with two counts of reckless endangerment and DUI, police said, adding that additional charges could come after the investigation is finished.ĬNN has reached out to Maccarone for comment but has not yet been able to determine if she has legal representation.ĬNN also reached out to the prosecuting attorney on the case for an update on the charges Maccarone faces. There were no children on board at the time of the arrest, police said, but she had just completed two afternoon bus routes.
Responding police officers “smelled an obvious odor of intoxicants coming from Maccarone,” the post said.
The 911 communications center contacted the school district transportation office and the bus driver was stopped, the Longview Police Department said in a September 13 Facebook post. In the 911 call, the child said the driver passed three red lights, and “there’s still kids on the there.” The driver was wobbling, the child said, and in her eyes “you can tell she was drunk.” A school bus driver in Longview, Washington, faces charges of driving under the influence and reckless endangerment after a child who had just gotten off the bus called 911, claiming the driver was intoxicated, police said.Ĭatherine Maccarone, 48, is on administrative leave while Longview Public Schools carries out its internal investigation of the September 12 incident, the district said Friday.
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