No New Trial for Motorist in Hit-and-Run School Bus Crash

LANCASTER, Pa. — A motorist here will not receive a new trial after he was convicted in a hit-and-run crash that caused a school bus carrying more than a dozen students to tip over two years ago.

As SBF previously reported, James Irvin III was sentenced in August 2018 to a prison term of five to 20 years. He was convicted of 68 charges, including aggravated assault and hit-and-run, in connection with the May 2017 crash in East Lampeter Township.

Judge Howard Kinsley reportedly said that Irvin showed “no regard” for anyone on the road when he drove 71 mph, while accelerating, during an illegal pass that caused a chain-reaction crash, in which a school bus with 14 Lancaster Mennonite School students tipped onto its side. A 6-year-old student was pinned under the bus and sustained a fractured clavicle, a lacerated spleen, and rib fractures, while another student, 16, sustained a fractured vertebra, according to a news release from the district attorney’s office.

On Monday, the Pennsylvania Superior Court denied Irvin’s request for a new trial, and wrote in a 10-page opinion report, according to the district attorney's office, that if it weren’t for Irvin’s reckless driving and illegal passing, none of the injuries would have happened.

The court also wrote in the report that Irvin “put his punctuality ahead of the safety of everyone else on the road that day,” and knew of the risk of collision and potential serious injury when he broke the speed limit by 30 mph and passed in an opposing traffic lane while attempting to overtake an 86-foot long tractor-trailer. Irvin, however, claimed that there wasn’t enough evidence to support a conviction of aggravated assault.