![]() ![]() We ought to diagnose what the problem is and figure out the best way to fix it.”īut diagnosing the problem isn’t an easy task. “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, which represents state highway safety offices, when told of Stateline’s findings. No one at the state or federal level appears to track cases involving impaired school bus drivers, and many state agencies weren’t even able to compile such information.Stateline found that at least 260 drivers in five states failed or refused to take the tests since 2015. Many other impaired school bus drivers have been identified through random drug and alcohol screenings, sometimes after they’ve finished their routes.While most of the 118 cases involved alcohol, about a third of the drivers allegedly had taken drugs, a situation some officials say is an unfortunate outgrowth of the nation’s struggle to control overuse of opioids and other prescription medication.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 have caught at least 118 drivers from California to Massachusetts operating a school bus while allegedly impaired.A months-long Stateline review of police records, court filings and news media reports in the last five years found: None of these incidents resulted in a bus driver or passenger fatality, and most of the students were not injured.īut highway safety advocates say officials need to do a better job monitoring drivers entrusted with children’s lives. School transportation groups point out that school buses are the safest means for students to get to school, and most drivers would never put children at risk. 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 has found. What happened that morning in Tennessee happens more often than is commonly known. Both he and his attorney, Mechelle Story Barbato, declined to comment. A judge sentenced him to 30 days in jail and 18 months of probation. Ledbetter, 60, pleaded guilty in July to driving under the influence while accompanied by a child and reckless endangerment. “But what if he had wrecked that bus and hurt those kids? No parent wants to get that phone call.” “Everybody makes mistakes,” said Lisa Freeman, Trista’s mother. ![]() 127 blood alcohol level - more than three times the legal limit for commercial drivers. Police arrived and gave him field sobriety tests, which he failed. Other parents started flooding the school transportation department and 911 with calls.Ī supervisor radioed the bus driver, Michael Ledbetter, and told him to pull over to the side of the highway. She phoned her mother, and her father, a volunteer firefighter, contacted police. All I know is I wanted off,” said Rose Reynolds, who was then 16. Trista, now 16, her older brother, Cody, and some of the other kids on board frantically called or texted their parents, alerting them to the frightening ride in this small manufacturing town about 40 miles northeast of Chattanooga. “Everyone on the bus was freaking out, yelling for him to stop,” she recalled. Trista was panic-stricken as the bus, with her and 26 other high school students aboard, nearly hit a car. ![]() ![]() Minutes later, the bus began swerving across lanes and blowing through red lights. Trista Freeman climbed onto school bus #41 on a chilly morning in November 2018 and knew immediately something was wrong: When the driver greeted her, she smelled alcohol on his breath. Impaired School Bus Drivers: Risky Ride (First in a series)ĭAYTON, Tenn. ![]()
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