Let’s begin with a quiz.
What stands between 9.5 to 11 feet tall, is 8 feet wide, and measures roughly 40 feet long?
What is bright yellow, has flashing red and amber lights, an extending arm that says, “STOP,” and a crossing arm?
The answer to both questions is simple – a school bus.
Yet, on Wednesday, Dec. 5, a car hit an 8-year-old crossing the street to meet his bus in Graham, N.C. The boy, a student at Haw River Elementary, survived even though he flipped all the way over the car: hood, roof and trunk. The kid jumped up and began talking almost as soon as he had hit the pavement, officers said.
The school bus had been stopped, the stop arm extended, with lights flashing, reports said.
Another accident took place on Dec. 5 when a crash involving an auto and a school bus took place in Washington. None of the students on the bus were hurt, but paramedics took the driver to the hospital, according to reports.
A day later, in Winston-Salem, a pick-up truck crashed into a school bus heading to Northwest Middle School. The driver hit his brakes, but his truck spun, and the truck bed struck the side of the bus.
The bus was stopped, stop-arm extended and lights flashing.
On Thursday, Dec. 13, a bus from C.C. Wright Elementary School in Wilkesboro, stopped in the eastbound lane – lights flashing, stop sign out, crossing arm down. A 5-year-old girl stepped off and began to cross the road toward home. An oncoming car hit her. She landed on the shoulder of the road with multiple fractures and possible internal injuries.
On Wednesday, Dec. 19, just before 7 a.m., a car struck high school student in Fuquay-Varina as he crossed the Judd Parkway to get on his bus. The bus’s amber lights were flashing to signal it was stopping, police said. They charged the 31-year-old man driving the car with failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident. The 17-year-old student was taken to WakeMed Hospital, but his injuries were not life-threatening.
At almost the same time, near Kernersville, on the day before school let out for Christmas, a school bus stopped at 6:46 a.m. The bus driver had turned the flashing lights on and extended the stop-arm.
An 11-year-old boy was crossing Old Hollow Road. He had missed the bus earlier, but the route the bus took meant the bus had to turn around and pass the boy’s home again. Coming by a second time, the bus stopped to let the youngster on.
A Jeep SUV heading in the other direction hit the sixth-grader. His mother, who had been getting ready to drive him to school, heard the impact. His mom, a nurse, ran to the road and tried to revive her child. She said in a news report she tried to breathe into him twice but could not get an airway.
He died later that morning at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
In almost every case, reports show the driver who collided with the bus said the same thing:
“I didn’t see the bus.”
What?
The driver did not see 76 square feet of yellow and flashing lights? The driver did not see an extended arm with a huge “STOP” written in white on a red background. What could account for such blindness? In the case of the little dead 11-year-old, a state trooper suggested that the sun was perhaps in the driver’s eyes.
I have a different postulation: These drivers allowed themselves to be distracted. I wonder how many cell phone records would show these drivers were receiving or sending texts just moments prior to – or during – the accident.
I have grandchildren who climb aboard buses every day.
Please do not drive distracted.
The life you spare may belong to one of my grandkids.
Mike Parker is a columnist for The Free Press. You can reach him at mparker16@suddenlink.net or in care of this newspaper. Information for this column came from two blogs in The Legal Examiner by Pierce Egerton available at greensboro.legalexaminer.com .