Driver who left child on bus gets license suspension

SOUTH PLAINFIELD, N.J. — A substitute school bus driver who left a 5-year-old child asleep on a school bus in December 2008 will be prohibited from driving a bus for six months, according to a story on mycentraljersey.com.

The child later got off the bus and was found wandering the parking lot of a nearby high school in tears.

Driver John Dacres failed to conduct the required visual inspection of the bus' interior before leaving the vehicle, as was found in a summary judgment issued by Administrative Law Judge Jeff S. Masin last month.

Failure of a driver to perform a visual inspection of a school bus following a transportation route is punishable under New Jersey education law by a license suspension for a first offense.

Both Dacres and an aide assigned to the bus reportedly refused to answer the district transportation director's questions about the incident. But Judge Masin found that accounts of the teacher who discovered the child and others involved in the incident could not be disputed.