School Bus Drivers Keep Driving Into Dangerous Floods

Dash cam image from inside a bus that was driven into Texas floodwaters.
The driver and the student riding the bus were saved, but the bus driver
was fired and faces criminal charges.

Heavy rain is likely over many parts of the eastern third of the United States and in the Pacific Northwest over the next week or so.

Some areas could experience flooding. 

Which got me thinking about school buses. The Mike Smith Enterprises Blog had a very worthy read recently about the shocking number of school bus drivers who drive into flood waters. Even when there's signs that say "High Water" or "Road Closed."

Smith documented at least eight instances so far this school year. In each case, he reports, children were on the buses and they had to be rescued. There've been no serious injuries so far, but these are close calls, and the potential for fatalities in these situations is high.

This is an international problem. Just this past week there was a tragedy in Jordan, when a flood swept away a school bus, killing 18 people, mostly children. 

By the way, check out the scary video at the bottom of this post that shows one recent incident in Texas.

It doesn't take much water to push a vehicle downstream, even if said vehicle is a big yellow school bus.

Why are bus drivers taking such risks with children? Smith has a theory:

"There is the possibility bus drivers are put under sufficient pressure to make schedules that it causes them to toss good judgement aside and attempt to make it through flooding in spite of the fact that drivers involved in many of these instances are fired."

School districts nationwide should read Smith's blog post and make sure strict rules are in place concerning buses and flooded roads.

As far as I'm concerned the rule should be: If the road is flooded, the bus doesn't go through. If this messes up schedules, makes kids late or is otherwise disruptive, too bad. Deal with it.

Other media is picking up on this phenomenon, so I hope this issue gets drummed into school bus service operators' heads.

Below is a scary video of the most recent case: A school bus with one kid on board drove into floodwater and was swept away. The driver, Nathan DeYoung, 57, was fired and police charged him with child endangerment and driving through a barricade.  A dash cam video in the bus captured the whole thing.

Notice in the video the barricades are well marked, but he drove through anyway. When he encountered the creek, you can see it was rushing fast, but he drove in anyway. The bus was carried quite a way downstream. Somehow, the bus didn't overturn. The driver and kid on board likely would have drowned it that happened.

The middle school student onboard the bus called his mother in hysterics when he was on the flooded bus because he thought he was going to die. No child should go through that. Excellent work by local first responders got the kid and the driver out quickly.

Watch: