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Heroic driver just glad to be alive BETHEL, Wash. — School bus driver Cheryl Mooring is being called a hero for her actions during a J...

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February 1, 2001

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Heroic driver just glad to be alive

BETHEL, Wash. — School bus driver Cheryl Mooring is being called a hero for her actions during a Jan. 8 crash in which a Ford Bronco smashed head-on into her bus, killing the other driver and setting the 1999 AmTran Genesis on fire. But Mooring sees herself more as a survivor than a hero. “I’m just glad to be here,” Mooring said one week after the crash. “I’m feeling really, really mortal.” Mooring, who has driven a school bus for Bethel School District for 11 years, was picking up students on her morning run when the Ford Bronco crossed over the centerline and crashed into her bus “right between the headlights.” Temporarily pinned in the wreckage, with smoke and fire starting to engulf the bus, Mooring told two students who rushed to her aid to “leave me here and get out of here any way you can.” Despite a puncture wound in her leg and glass in her face, Mooring managed to free herself and safely evacuate her 22 passengers. “I had to put my face right in their face to see them,” she said, explaining that her glasses flew through the shattered windshield. Sixteen of the 22 middle-school passengers suffered minor injuries. Mooring said she won’t be able to return to work for at least six weeks and is uncertain whether she’ll want to drive a bus again. “I’m working on that,” she said.

2 drivers snared in urine scheme

ALBANY, N.Y. — Two school bus drivers were charged on Jan. 3 with endangering the welfare of a child after allegedly paying a kindergartner $5 to provide them with a urine sample. One of the drivers, Kimberly Holsapple, substituted the boy’s urine sample for her own during a drug screening. She apparently believed she would fail because she had recently used marijuana. The other driver charged in the scheme is Tanya Humbert. Both drivers were fired by their employer, Stock Transportation Inc., which contracts with the Albany City School District. The scheme came to light when the kindergartner’s mother called school officials the next day. A videotape taken from one of the buses showed Holsapple and Humbert discussing how to keep the urine warm, Stock officials said.

EPA sets stricter diesel standards

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In an effort to produce cleaner diesel fuel and reduce pollution, the EPA announced on Dec. 21 that U.S. refiners must reduce sulfur in diesel fuel to 15 parts per million (from 500 ppm) by 2006 and that truck and bus manufacturers must reduce engine emissions by more than 90 percent by 2007. The EPA estimates that the new requirements will eventually eliminate 2.6 million tons of smog-causing chemicals and 110,000 tons of soot annually. “Today’s action will dramatically cut harmful air pollution by up to 95 percent,” said EPA Administrator Carol Browner. “New trucks and buses will run as cleanly as those running on natural gas.” International Truck and Engine Corp. in Chicago, one of the school bus industry’s leading engine manufacturers, endorsed the EPA’s action. “We strongly support the EPA’s reduction of diesel fuel sulfur levels, which will enable the after-treatment technologies that are required to achieve the agency’s challenging new emissions standards,” said John R. Horne, chairman of Navistar International Corp., parent of International.

New Mexico upgrades driver training

SANTA FE, N.M. — Beginning July 1, school bus drivers will no longer have to attend a 32-hour recertification program in Silver City, N.M., every three years, ending a training system that was implemented in 1941. Gilbert Perea, director of pupil transportation at the New Mexico Department of Education, said local school districts now can provide their own training, with each driver required to undergo 16 hours of in-service training each year. “It’s a positive change in the delivery of training,” Perea said. “It provides for more training per year than we previously had and will have a tremendous impact on recruitment and retention.” Perea said the previous recertification requirement was burdensome for many drivers because Silver City is located in the southwest corner of the state, hundreds of miles from the most populated areas of New Mexico. Perea added that the state also has standardized certification of the school bus driver instructors who provide pre-service training.

Topics:Safety

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