School bus safety: Our view

6 kids are dead. People complained about the Chattanooga driver, but no one took action.

Warning lights were flashing in the days before the horrific crash of a school bus in Chattanooga, Tenn., last month.

Hamilton County education officials had received complaints from a parent, children, a school behavior specialist and the Woodmore Elementary School principal accusing the driver variously of speeding, cursing at children, telling them he didn’t care about them and, on one trip, “swerving and purposely trying to cause them to fall.” On Nov. 16, a handwritten note from a student arrived: The driver goes so fast it feels “like the bus is going to flip over.”

Five days later, the driver ran off a narrow, winding road — not part of his regular route — and slammed into a tree. Six children died as a result. The 24-year-old driver, Johnthony Walker, has been charged with six counts of vehicular homicide.

As for the adults responsible for the children’s safety? They're pointing fingers. The Hamilton County Department of Education says it passed "along complaints and concerns” to Durham School Services, the private Illinois firm that provides bus service to districts in Tennessee and 31 other states.

Durham got some but not all of the complaints, and after investigating, said CEO David A. Duke, saw no reason to terminate Walker. Duke added that the county department could have demanded Walker's removal from his routes. An education department spokesman disagreed. “We pay Durham to make those decisions,” she wrote in an email to USA TODAY.

credits: usatoday