Past Driving Records May Predict Future Iowa School Bus Crashes
After a Cedar Rapids school bus driver struck an 84-year-old pedestrian and was charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian on September 21, another bus accident in Iowa occurred on October 31, killing an 11-year-old boy. These Iowa school bus accidents caused KCRG and The Gazette to investigate school bus drivers in Iowa.
A recent article published in The Gazette revealed that more than 40 percent of school bus drivers in the four largest school districts in Iowa have had at least one traffic violation since 2000. The findings on 366 drivers for Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Linn-Mar and College Community school districts indicated that 155 school bus drivers have at least one non-parking violation.
These violations include speeding, failure to yield, failure to stop at railroad tracks, unsafe backing, and unlawful passing of a school bus. Some drivers even have been convicted of drunken driving, child endangerment, theft, disorderly conduct, assault, and selling tobacco to a minor.
Several Eastern Iowa parents that The Gazette talked with did not know the driving records of their children’s school bus drivers. Many thought the school districts would conduct this type of research on their school bus drivers.
However, the school districts say that they do run criminal background checks and check a school bus driver’s record through the Iowa Department of Transportation.
As for the 43-year-old bus driver Vicki Lard who struck the elderly pedestrian in Cedar Rapids, she had no other traffic violations prior to this incident. She blamed the crash on the morning sun. As for Michaela Siems-Dighton, the bus driver who killed the 11-year-old boy, it was learned that she had had three speeding tickets since 2000.
Research shows that past driving records can be linked to future crashes, according to the research conducted by the Center for National Truck and Bus Statistics at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.
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