3 siblings struck, killed by truck at bus stop in Indiana
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
ROCHESTER, Ind. - A 9-year-old girl and her twin 6-year-old brothers were struck and killed by a pickup truck as they crossed a northern Indiana road to board a school bus before sunrise Tuesday, police said. A fourth child was critically injured and airlifted to a hospital.
A Tippecanoe Valley School Corp. bus had stopped and lowered its stop-arm on the road near Rochester around 7 a.m., just before a northbound pickup truck slammed into the children as they crossed the southbound lane, Indiana State Police Sgt. Tony Slocum said.
Six-year-old twin brothers Xzavier and Mason Ingle and their 9-year-old sister, Alivia Stahl, died at the scene, he said. The rural Rochester residents were students at nearby Mentone Elementary School.
The siblings' great aunt, Pamela Pugh, told the South Bend Tribune that she was stunned and shaken by their deaths.
"I'm just trying to make sense of all of it. There are no words," she said.
Slocum said an 11-year-old boy not related to the deceased siblings suffered multiple broken bones when he was also hit by the pickup. That child, Maverik Lowe, was in critical condition at a Fort Wayne hospital and was undergoing surgery.
Lowe was conscious and speaking to emergency workers before he was airlifted to the hospital, Slocum said.
Authorities were interviewing the pickup driver.
He said it was early in the crash investigation and it was unclear if the driver would face charges in the deaths, although he noted Indiana law requires motorists to stop when a school bus is picking up or dropping off children.
Slocum said the students had the right of way as they crossed the street from the rural mobile home community where they lived.
"It's an unspeakable tragedy," he said. "We all have a responsibility to share the roadway and we're all responsible for making sure our children get to and from school safely."
The Tippecanoe Valley School Corp. said in a statement posted on Facebook that counsellors had been dispatched to its schools to help students, staff and parents and urged "the community to come together to pray for the families."
Detectives were interviewing witnesses and a crash reconstruction team was at the scene near Rochester, about 100 miles (160 kilometres) north of Indianapolis.
Gov. Eric Holcomb said in a statement that he and his wife, Janet, were mourning the students' death and urged Indiana residents to send their "deepest prayers for the strength needed to endure such a time."
"Words cannot express the depth of sorrow Janet and I feel, which only pales in comparison to what family, friends, teachers, classmates and community are feeling right now," he said.
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This is not about bombs, massacres, politics or such so it's probably not going to get much traction. However given that school is in I thought this article is a great reminder to all that even a moments distraction or inattention while driving can have truly tragic results
This was tragic. I feel for all those involved. I have a bus driver friend and she would be devastated if a child died during her watch.
In my neck of the woods a bus driver will not let the children cross the road if opposing traffic is not at a complete stop. If you think you are going to slow down and roll up to her while children are crossing, that is not going to happen.
That's good driving. All bus drivers should do this
RIP to the three young ones and a speedy recovery to the injured little boy.
When around school buses/zones one must be extra vigilant and aware at all times.
I come up behind a school bus almost every day on my way home. I always wait to see what the kids are going to do before I move because kids are upredictable.
This is so heartbreaking. I hope they throw that guy in a prison cell and he never sees the light of day again
The perp was a 24 year old female who worked with children. I'm sure she is feeling tons of remorse I just want to know WTF she was thinking/doing. Texting?
My guess is texting
Such a loss and injury.
Agree:
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This thread has been deleted by seeders request. [ph]
There are always those who think that a bus's raised stop sign and flashing lights don't apply to them, and are surely just intended to make them late to work. Selfish assholes.
The driver has been charged:
In the story linked by Sandy it said:
I'm confused. If the bus was in the northbound lane, and the truck was southbound, then it was coming towards the front of the bus rather than towards the rear. I assume the bus' stop signs face both directions. However, is it not usual for children to walk around the front of the bus to get to the other side of the road, since the only door is close to the front of the bus? If so, why did the children not see the truck coming? Perhaps they put too much reliance on thinking that the truck would stop. It's a mystery to me.
They're kids. They're used to traffic stopping for them when they board the bus, because it's the law that traffic going both ways must stop. So they mistakenly thought the driver would stop, as she should have done.
Kids are supposed to be waiting on the side of the road that is faced by the door, but that's not always easy. At my son's bus stop, that side of the road has no shoulder, and there's a steep bank, so there's no safe place to stand. And many children are driven to the bus stop by their parents, who may or may not be able to find a place to park on that side of the road.
I have a friend who is a bus driver and she says that every day people pass her while her red flashing lights and stop arm and signs are deployed. It would be nice if all these school districts could aford cameras to record these lawbreakers, then dispatch the police to them and write them tickets-if they don't care about othe rpeople, at least, they might care about their wallet/pocketbook.
One of the things I've seen locally, busses no longer stop across the street and allow kids to cross-the routes are always so the kids get out and stay on the same side of the road as the bus. More expensive and time consuming, but save a life and its all worth it.
It's too bad your friend doesn't have the time to write down license plate numbers.
That wouldn't actually be that hard to do. Attach an inexpensive go-pro to the front and back of the bus.
There is just no excuse for requiring children to cross a road to get into or out of their school bus.
Plan the routes so that the bus door is on the proper (and safe) side of the street.
Sure, it will take more time and thus cost more money, but relying upon ALL drivers to be responsible - to protect children with a mere metal sign and lights - is incompetence and demonstrably risks the lives of kids.
Most of the school bus routes around where I live are planned that way, that's right MOST.
Sometimes it is just not possible to do that....
I believe that.
Why? Give me an example. Here we have a two lane road where kids had to cross a lane of traffic to get to their bus. How is it not possible to have the bus pick them up on their side of the street?
ok, cost for one. That is something even the rabidly liberal school systems here in washington cite when this question is posted to them.
Of course it "IS" possible just not practical. to deal with motorists that disobey the Bus signs/lights they installed cameras on the busses to record the lawbreakers. Why cause of several recent incidents exactly like this one.
One fool even decided to pass the bus on the right side while it was picking up children....
Is it possible to do what your describing? yes but wildly impractical...
And it won't stop the deliberate law breaker anyway, and sometimes, there is just an accident....
WE have to accept that in a society such as we have, tragic accidents happen and there is no real fault....
And an example, some people are just selfish and don't give a damn...
This video comes from KOMO TV here in Western Washington covering an event that happened just a few minutes from where I live....
Komo coverage
Chilling to say the least... a miracle that no one was killed.
Why is it 'wildly impractical'? Since each route is a unique item of planning, how can you possibly know what is wildly impractical? It will cost more, no doubt. But there is no possible way for you to make such a claim without specifics.
If it is wildly impractical for a particular route then it would not be done. But to argue that this is wildly impractical for ALL routes - that NOTHING can be done by way of intelligent planning is nonsense. No way can anyone claim that it is categorically wildly impractical to review our school routes and make sensible to changes to protect the lives of the children. And in this specific scenario, why is it wildly impractical for this school bus to pick the kids up on their side of this road?
That is an argument to do nothing. Acceptable losses? Just deem the current system 'good enough' with not even an attempt to use intelligent route planning to eliminate cases such as shown in this seed?
Ever consider why we have building codes? Mostly it is to preempt mistakes and problems that endanger lives. It is using our brains to intelligently avoid likely accidents. Here we have school children crossing a lane of traffic (not a street in a subdivision - an active roadway) and you suggest that we have to accept that sometimes kids get killed and there is no need to make any attempt to route our school buses in a more intelligent manner??
I wonder if the driver parked her bus on the curb from this point on rather than have kids cross a lane of traffic?
That wasn't a bus driver forcing the kids to cross a lane of traffic or even the driver passing in the right lane...
IT WAS A DRIVER PASSING ON THE SHOULDER! GOING UP OVER THE CURB!
On a two lane road. ie. everything was done correctly and the driver deliberately passed to the right barely missing killing three kids the SAME AGE! who were kids happy that the bus had arrived and not paying any attention. not a care in the world cause it was happening the same way it happens everyday.
People are just selfish and buried in themselves....
Wow. What an irresponsible ass of a driver.
Yeah, not sure how one can prevent such an irresponsible act.
Which is why it is important that we maintain a high quality of systemic safety measures. Thinking through the dynamics based on lessons learned and mitigating a lot of driver stupidity by design.
(As I noted, I have no idea how to prevent a driver from driving on the curb. Not what I am talking about.)
I don't know if that would be feasible in rural areas, where bus routes are already long, and there's no real pattern to which side of the road the bus stops are on.
My son's bus stop is on a fairly narrow rural road. The driver just stops in the middle of the road, effectively stopping traffic from either direction.
If the bus effectively stops traffic on both ends then the kids would be safe.
Look at the example in this seed. What stops the bus (other than additional cost) to pick up these kids on their side of the road so that they do not have to cross a line of active traffic?
If the bus retraces its route and picks up kids whose stops were on the "wrong" side of the road on the first pass, that would work. But long or circuitous routes would make that difficult, and would make bus rides in some areas really long, when they're already pretty long.
We could add more buses, where funding is available. I'm willing to pay to fund that, but I'm probably in the minority, unfortunately.
When my wife drove bus (as I did also for a short time) she would straight line drive out 10 miles picking up students on the way then it was a serpentine drive back down side roads around blocks and actually coming back to the school from the opposite direction, there was no way to travel that same 10 miles back the other way. Down the main highway though it was up and down both sides and with a wide shoulder to park the bus, it was hazard stops only allowing traffic to continue to flow past.
In my field the problem of routing is a classical optimization problem. There are myriad ways to design routes which involve a multidimensional optimization (attempting to find the best mix of competing factors such as distance, time, safety, ...).
This seed presents a case where three children were killed crossing an active roadway to get to their school bus. I see this as evidence that we can do a better job of route planning. By using our brains (and paying more for the service) these kinds of avoidable tragedies could be lessened.
But the one hole in the argument? Never eliminated.
So the argument becomes one of how much? similar argument?
Cars can be designed so they kill no one, but who is going to pay the cost of such? NOBODY!
Spend all the money you want, you are not going to eliminate the problem...
Why is that a hole?
Where do I claim to eliminate the problem?
I do not get your perspective. If we cannot eliminate the problem 100% we should not try to do anything?
Tell me you are not arguing that we should do nothing to intelligently improve the safety of our school children unless we can get a system that is 100% foolproof.
What I'm saying is that our society has a built in error rate, you are talking about reducing the error rate by throwing more money at the problem or by placing more and more regulations on how to go about it.
We both understand that the error rate cannot be eliminated.
So a balance is struck between efficiency and safety in this specific instance. It's a balance that will always be struck. Recognizing that there are some instances when what you state should be is impossible.
More planning/money isn't the answer, and we have all the laws that we need.
Better morals in the members of this society? More compassion in society? More understanding?
This isn't an issue that can be resolved in policy or engineering.
It involves people and their decisions.
Uh, yeah. When I see a preventable situation in which children are KILLED, I am inclined to seek a way to reduce the amount of KILLED children.
And 'throwing money at the problem' is not what I am talking about. Throwing money at a problem means funding nonsense projects and/or funding without accountability.
So to make this super simple, here is what I would do as a superintendent of schools:
How much money is spent is a function of the severity of the problem. Some districts might be good to go already. Others may be full of dangerous stops. One must analyze the data to know the specifics of a situation.
You seem to be arguing that we do nothing because society necessarily will have collateral damage. Well, even military operations consider collateral damage, safety of troops, etc. as well as cost and time. We do not simply shrug and say: 'yeah we will kill a lot of civilians this way but we are not going to spend any time thinking about potentially better approaches because we know it will cost more' (but we have no idea how much more).
No and please do not characterise what I'm saying as fact when you are stating only your opinion. you are better than that.
I agree with everything you have said in this last posting.
I"m not arguing that nothing be done, in fact I think exactly that is happening right now. Many school systems are reviewing their protocols and regulations to see if there any improvement that can be made....
What I'm saying it that there have been people for generations looking at exactly just such.... and we have the best system given the materials and resources at hand today.
If more money is to be spent, it should be spent in a way that has the best chance of success. And in my opinion, that would be a system that eliminates busing....
The only way I can see to reduce or eliminate the problem. Until then we have to resolve ourselves to we have the best system money can buy.... (and exercise much more caution when it comes to our kids cause you never never know when the exception to the general rule is going to happen.)
that is what happened here in WA State at least with our specific school system. They added cameras to the buses to record the vitals of those doing such stupidity so they can pay the price. making the system even more complicated than it is while spending millions more is not the answer.
But that is just my opinion. don't hope for a solution, get one that actually works then spend the money...
How am I to interpret your words then? What do you mean by:
Does that mean that you think we have acceptable levels of children being killed at school bus stops? If not, what are you saying? Bear in mind that you are arguing with me because I suggested that we inspect our routes and try to eliminate bus stops which require children to cross active roadways. So how am I to interpret your words?
I hope so. It costs very little to review school bus routes. It costs a bit more to engage in active optimization. The big costs would be adding more buses. But until one does the analysis one does not know the costs. Given we are talking about the lives of school children, I would think everyone would be willing to investigate.
That is why I remain amazed that anyone would object to my suggestion to review routes and reduce / eliminate dangerous stops.
And I totally disagree. People (especially bureaucratic entities) routinely produce ineffective systems. But forget that, look at this case in point. Do you really want to argue that this is the best they could have done? If you were in charge of this particular bus route are you telling me that you would NOT look into your district routes and attempt to mitigate / eliminate stops where children cross active roadways? Clearly you would not say, well we expect some level of mortality - three kids is within our acceptable margin of error.
I thought I was pretty clear.
At this point I will bow out.
Thank you for as far as it went...
Done and donener...
Our prayers are there with them
That poor baby. My heart goes out to his mother
Heartbreaking.
I wonder how fast the woman was going if he was thrown 30 ft.
The posted Speed Limit is 45 Mph on the 2 lane portion outside of Rochester
This is the approach to the accident site
The only excuse for not having seen a bus on that road is if one were to blind too be operating a car in the first place.
probably texting her boss that she was running late...
at 50Mph.
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It wasn't the time or place, Lenny.
Ummmm, how in the fuck is that even possible? The bus was stopped, stop sign out, the law requires vehicles to stop the kids had the right of way. Shit head didn't stop and killed 3 kids, and injured a fourth. Can someone please explain to me how this total fucking asshole may not face charges, much less go to prison for an extremely long time?
Nope can't explain it. I do know that a total of 7 kids were killed in similar circumstances that week and one other driver is not expected to face charges, one is only facing minor charges (no murder or manslaughter), and one I don't know. All's I can say is this doesn't appear to be the exception to the norm.