This past week on Indiana 25 on a school day, three students were killed and one badly injured when hit by a southbound car that did not stop for the northbound school bus waiting to pick them up.
I have been on Indiana 25 near Rochester; it’s a old-fashioned highway that goes along the east side of Wabash River terrain. I don’t know for certain, but it feels like a route that evolved from an Indian trail turned pioneer road and, as such, it does not go straight. There is a section of the road that has a lot of curves – some of them have the “S” curve signs and some of them are close together, but not actually connected into an “S” configuration.
I don’t go on 25 often; when I do it is because my point of departure makes it the most sensible – assuming the weather is good. I add that last part because every time I travel on it, I find myself thinking, “Boy, I wouldn’t want to be on this road in the dark or in slippery conditions.” It wiggles to the south in twists that you can’t ease into.
This past week, the week of the accident, Indiana was still on Eastern Daylight Time. Anyone who has read a bit of this blog knows that I do not like Daylight Savings Time in Indiana. We are as far west as you can get and still be in the Eastern Time Zone. When you add on Daylight Savings Time, it really throws things of off kilter; in fact, for years, Indiana opted out of “going on Fast Time” as we used to call it.
With the fairly recent extensions of DST until November, school mornings in Indiana are in the dark. Buses run in the REALLY DARK. Another thing from the past is that school buses picked up students from the side of the road where the kids were waiting. Routes were designed that way, and then, somewhere along the line, kids had to walk across one lane of a highway to reach the bus, go in front of it, and then board. We’re not talking county road here; we do mean highway, complete with an actual painted line down the middle.
What happened this week is more complex that just a driver going by a stopped school bus. Coming out of a curve at 10 miles below the speed limit, she saw yellow lights in the dark. Just recently one dark morning I saw yellow lights by the side of the road and knew it was utilities or construction, but still thought that it probably wasn’t the safest idea to have workmen out before it was light. I’m pretty certain there are red lights on a stopped school bus, as well, but they are mixed in with yellow.
The school bus driver saw the headlights of an oncoming vehicle but figured the driver would stop and motioned the kids, two of whom were six, across the highway. I have always stressed to anyone I have taught to drive never to trust that a car signaling a turn will actually turn; you can’t pull out until you actually see the car commit to the turn. I have stressed that in the dark car lights may or may not be closer than they seem. And it is not beyond possibility that a driver may become impaired and not stop for whatever reason.
In short, I cannot understand a bus driver motioning little kids to cross in front of a moving oncoming car.
The parents of the children hit had repeatedly complained to the school district about the bus stop regarding highway-crossing situation. However, no adult accompanied the kids to the stop – and remember two were SIX year old boys.
If Indiana had not been on Daylight Savings Time last week in late October, it would have been light when the car approached from the north. But, it was dark and in the short amount of time coming out of the curve, the driver did not recognize there was a stopped school bus in the other lane. She made a tragic error. Nothing will bring the children back, ever. She knows that. I don’t think she deserves to be vilified because of what happened. It was not a willful flaunting of the law, and she was not speeding.
I don’t believe one can ignore the other factors in play, in particular, the decision of the bus driver to assume the car would stop and the choice of worried parents to not make certain their still Santa Claus believing tykes would not encounter disaster on an Indiana highway before dawn.
Remember the impaired driver situation I mentioned? Well, this year in Fort Wayne, a police office suffered a heart attack while at the wheel of his squad car and lost control. It happens. It could have been a police officer who struck kids instructed to cross the road.
What happened this week must be evaluated in light of all the information.
Another reason to get rid of daylight saving time.
And another reason to question why the driver of the bus motioned the kids to cross. I grew up walking down a US highway for about 1/4 a mile and then crossing it. Unless I was running late in which case I ran like a mad-hatter across the field, jumped two ditches and vaulted the barbed-wire fence to get to the highway and cross it. I think the bus driver kind of got a kick out of seeing us tear out of the house and head down the lane. We could see the bus when it was a mile away at the stop before ours and would often wait until we saw the bus to leave the warmth of the house.
A terrible tragedy for sure. And yes the parents should have been at the stop if they were concerned. On the other hand it is crazy here in TX as in my neighborhood every day when the bus comes or goes there are parents lined up at the stop in their cars or standing there waiting with their children even though their house is within view of the stop, sometimes right next to it! This is a quiet neighborhood and nobody is speeding. The bus will not stop and let a child off unless the parent is there to meet them. And to think that my son walked to kindergarten in Chicago a good 6 blocks by himself at age 6.
To me the issue is the location of the bus stop. Perhaps it needs to be relocated. I know where I grew up that run never happens now because they made a law saying that children can’t cross highways so now instead of being picked up at 7:45 am for school the kids at that stop have to be there at 6 am and they make the entire round of the route. Meaning most parents are driving their kids to school in the end…..
I do think there needs to be safe practices but there is also something about teaching children safety and letting them experience life without a helicopter parents.
The loss of life is tragedy. We’ve had several school bus situations just like that here this month. People need to watch what they are doing and obey the law. But everyone is too busy on their phone or too much in a hurry. Life is too short to be in a hurry.