CARTERSVILLE, Ga. — School bus video shows a pickup truck nearly striking a student as it sped past a stopped school bus.
On the morning of Aug. 20, video footage from a Bartow County Schools bus shows a teenager starting to cross the road when the pickup truck passes a stopped school bus. The school bus driver quickly slammed on the horn to alert the ninth-grader, who jumped out of the way just in time.
The Bartow County Sheriff’s Office honored the bus driver, identified by the news source as Shannon Banks, for her quick thinking, and announced that the driver of the truck has been arrested, according to WXIA.
Banks told WXIA that during seven years of driving for Bartow County Schools, she has had other illegal passing incidents happen, “but none like this.”
In a Facebook post on Thursday, Bartow County Schools shared the video of the incident and included a reminder that state law requires motorists to stop when school bus drivers activate the bus’s warning lights and stop arm. Charges against the suspected driver, the district added in the post, include reckless driving, tampering with evidence, failure to maintain driving in one lane, failure to stop for a school bus that is loading or unloading, and failure to obey a stop sign.
“Thanks to Bartow County school bus driver Shannon Banks, this 15-year-old is safe,” the district said in the post. “However, please remember, failure to obey the law could have life-threatening consequences.”
The district posted on its Facebook page on Friday that since school began in August, 44 stop-arm violations have been reported, and 28 citations have been issued as a result. The district added that nearly 4,000 tickets have been issued for illegally passing school buses since 2012.
Watch video of the incident, posted by the district on its Facebook page, below.
