Tales from the School Bus. No brake lights ….?

I’ve got a lot of school bus blog drafts in the works, but haven’t put anything out on that topic for about a year or so. The stuff I see every day is amazing. I’ve been driving the hearts and minds of tomorrow’s future leaders (and felons) for about five years now. But I have something I want to share that happened recently.

This event was a little hard to process. And I’ve found that writing, if not an outlet, is certainly therapy. This is not a happy, feel-good story. There won’t be a lot of visuals and GIFs and all the little goofy stuff I throw in from time to time.

The center of this tale of public education transportation will be a student I’ll call Tommy. Now Tommy is a second grader. Small for his age, he loves running from point A to B every chance he gets. He’s maybe 40 feet and 40 pounds soaking wet.

Tommy is also one of the few elementary kids on my route with an assigned seat: front right. So I can keep him within arm’s reach, and he can hear me without using the mic. Seldom is there an AM or PM trip where I don’t have to call out his name a half dozen times to sit down and keep his hands to himself.

This little ball of energy is the first stop in the afternoon (when students are the most wound up), so we have fallen into a predictable pattern that I’m good with. It makes me think back to when my kids spun around like the Tasmanian Devil when getting home from school.

Now, Tommy’s stop is unusual. My route has been established for probably 20 years, and just by sheer luck, the actual stop is right at the mailbox in front of his home. The city improved this stretch of street about ten years ago. Although a 35-mph zone, I have two-way traffic with a center turn lane and nice long sight lines for stopping traffic.

Per WA state law, a school bus will NEVER cross students on any other road wider than a two-lane. Which apparently nobody knows, because the opposing traffic ALWAYS stops (even firefighters once, which I thought was funny). Gotta know those danger zones.

Tommy loves to run, but it’s a pretty safe zone. Almost without fail, his mom hears the bus coming up and is on the front porch. I open the door and always say, “Have a great afternoon, Tommy,” He skips across the three feet of bike lane and three feet of curb/sidewalk and is running through the grass of his front yards before you can blink an eye.

He runs in a goofy kind of Forrest Gump way that only small kids can pull off with falling all over themselves. I’ve been doing this stop for two years now and t’s the same every time. Simple. Routine. Blase. Until two weeks ago.

It was a usual mid-week afternoon. Not too cold. Maybe some clouds. Dry streets with little traffic. I throw on the flashing lights, and check all the mirrors. Just roll up to stop and give Mom a quick wave on the porch.

Tommy must have been wearing Flash Gordon shoes. The door opens, and he’s like a Triple Crown contender being released from the starting gate. “Have a great afternoon, Tommy.”

He reached the bottom of the bus stairs, stopped, grabbed the handrail, did a 180-degree pivot, and smiled at me. With the comical wave that only a second grader can do, he said, “Sure thing, Mr. Bus Driver.” He does that probably one out of ten times. And that was when it happened.

There was a sudden flash of motion. The open entry doors of the bus shook violently. Gust of wind. A horrible crashing sound of metal tearing metal. I blink. Focus. Tommy is still on the last step. All color drained from his face. Scared. Terrified. Eyes enormous, welling up with tears.

Less than forty feet behind him, I can still see his mother. But now she is on her knees, hands covering her face, with a muffled shriek of pain I will never forget. I’m confused. My mind can’t process any of this.

There is motion in front of the bus. It’s a green car. But wait, there can’t be a car in front of me because I stopped them all behind me. There is something wrong. Different.

The vehicle is not on the road. It has two tires up on the sidewalk curb and two tires a half foot lower in the bike lane. There is another crash. I see the car heave up in the air and bounce over the neighbor’s mailbox and steel post.

Numbly, I watch as it swerves back onto the road and speeds off. I remember my first thought was, “Hmmmm. No brake lights. Not even a tap.” It was surreal.

I have heard that sometimes things happen so fast that the body cannot process all the information. I guess you call it shock. I could not make sense of what just happened. It just wasn’t possible. That was when the adrenaline kicked in.

Thirty-five kids are screaming, “Tommy’s dead!” The mother is running across the lawn to her son, who is still grasping the stop handrail with both hands, crying. I checked everything around me and told him to go to her. Heartbeat 130, hands shaking.

All I can picture is little Tommy cut in half and lying crushed on the sidewalk. Torn up and twisted like those mailboxes.

I take a deep breath and get the stop paddle down. With a bit of luck, a car I stopped in back of the bus would blow by me in the passing lane and get a plate number. I calmed down the students. I gathered my thoughts. Focus.

I would need to rely on every ounce of muscle memory to complete the remaining eight stops and safely transport the rest of the students back home. However, despite my best efforts, I couldn’t help but replay the events of that split second in my mind over and over again. Even now, it’s still difficult to comprehend how it all happened.

I radioed in the incident as I finished the route. The internal camera SD card was pulled from my bus, hoping to catch a glimpse of the vehicle. All information was given to the police. Statements were taken, and an investigation started.

I did speak with the parents over the following days. The mother thought she had witnessed the death of her only son. The police will search, while the trama fades. But nothing will come from it.

For unknown reasons, it appears that a late model VW sedan came up to my stopped bus with all the flashing lights and stop paddle out going approximately 40 miles per hour. They did not attempt to slow (no skid marks). They did not swerve to the left, where there was an open two-way passing lane.

Instead, they chose to pass me on to the right, where my student was exiting just a couple of feet from the curve. They drove down the sidewalk at full speed, taking out mailboxes. The shaking of my open entry doors was caused by their side mirror clipping them.

Tommy was only inches away. One step from running to arms of his waiting mother. Making peace with something like this is challenging. It’s hard not to remind myself that I’m the one who opened the door.

Tommy wouldn’t ride the bus for a few days. When he finally did, he wouldn’t talk. But working as a school bus driver, I’ve come to understand how amazing and resilient kids can be—especially the small ones. Tommy finally opened up again.

He returned to his old self, never wanting to sit down and run everywhere. And that helped me. A lot.

It reminded me that you can control only so many things in life. And sometimes, shit just happens. And it can be horrible. And senseless. And terrifying. But there are no answers, so don’t look for them.

Or maybe this is a wake up moment. A warning shot. A near miss. Something to help you remember how every day can be a gift.

Or better yet, maybe this was a teaching moment. What did I learn? Easy. Always check the sidewalk for speeding cars when doing a school bus stop. Yeah. You won’t find that little gem in the training manual.