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The state Legislature’s Joint Education Committee is reportedly interested in raising the penalties for bus-passing violations and making it a stepped offense so that penalties are increased for multiple offenses. The legislators also are considering installing external cameras on all daily route buses to help in catching and citing offenders.
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In the months since bus driver Charles Poland was gunned down and a student was taken hostage, Dale County Schools is “doing better with time,” Superintendent Donny Bynum says. Here, he reveals insights on the heartrending episode and describes what has helped his district in the healing process.
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An Iowa school bus driver passes away after suffering a medical emergency during his route, but officials say that he pulled the bus over safely and no students were injured. The incident follows the death of another driver in New Mexico, where a bus went off of a road and down an embankment.
Read More →Milo D. Bryant, who served as the state’s transportation secretary under Gov. Wallace Wilkinson in the 1980s, passed away last week at the age of 82. Bryant led a bus safety task force that recommended various improvements to school buses and driver training following the fatal 1988 school bus crash in Carrollton.
Read More →In its definition of the word “hero,” Webster’s notes that it is “especially one who has risked or sacrificed his life.” Charles sacrificed his life to protect his kids — the passengers on his school bus.
Read More →A system from Rostra Precision Controls Inc. and a system from National Patent Analytical Systems Inc. are undergoing evaluation for potential installation on school buses in the state to help prevent danger zone injuries and fatalities. The installation of such a system is a goal of the Smile BIG Foundation, which was founded in honor of Justin Bradfield. Bradfield was killed in a 2011 danger zone accident.
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In the fatal Liberty, Mo., school bus crash in 2005, the National Transportation Safety Board ruled out mechanical failure and found that the circumstances “are consistent with driver pedal misapplication.” Now, in a civil trial, the jury echoes the federal investigators’ conclusion.
Read More →Two men transporting buses to Mexico are taken into custody on Wednesday and face various charges, including involuntary manslaughter. According to the Kansas State Patrol, a school bus being towed by another bus got a flat tire, so the driver detached the buses and they sat in the roadway, leading to an accident that killed a motorist.
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An Alabama man identified by neighbors as Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, allegedly boarded a school bus on Tuesday and demanded two children. When school bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr. refused, he was fatally shot. The suspect then took a 5-year-old kindergartner and retreated to a bunker on his property, where they remained as of Thursday.
Read More →As previously reported, the Kansas State Department of Education's latest national survey found that nine children were killed in school bus loading and unloading accidents in the U.S. in the 2011-12 school year. A PDF of the full report can now be downloaded from the department’s website.
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