School Bus Driver in Fatal Crash Had Traffic Violations

BALTIMORE — The school bus driver who was killed, along with five others, in a crash here on Tuesday was found at fault in three traffic-related cases in the last eight years, The Associated Press reports.

The school bus struck a Ford Mustang and a pillar on the side of the road. It then entered oncoming traffic and hit the driver’s side of a Maryland Transit Administration bus and ripped the driver’s side off of the bus. One of the five killed on the transit bus was the driver, Ebonee Baker, according to the news source.

According to civil and criminal court records and an attorney interviewed by The Associated Press, school bus driver Glenn R. Chappell lost a civil case over hitting a parked car in 2008. The complaint, from Nationwide Insurance, alleged that Chappell was negligent in “failing to pay full time and attention to the roadway, operating at excessive speed, failing to maintain control of his vehicle, failing to avoid colliding with other vehicles.”

Chappell was also convicted in 2014 for not showing a registration card during a traffic stop, and convicted again last November of driving a vehicle with suspended registration, the news source reports. These offenses did not involve a school bus.

Chappell’s employer, bus contractor AA Affordable Transportation, didn’t immediately respond to calls and emails from The Associated Press about Chappell’s history. Baltimore City Public Schools spokeswoman Edie House declined to comment to the news source on the court records, saying school officials needed to review them first.