A 62-year-old bus driver in Queens has been arrested and charged with failure to exercise control of a minor after she allegedly left a 2-year-old girl alone in a parked school bus this morning. The girl is fine but the driver, Ana Garcia, has probably had better days. more ›

A Queens woman is in critical condition after getting run over by a school bus that careened off the road after colliding with another vehicle yesterday afternoon in Jamaica. NBC New York reports that the unidentified woman was walking on the sidewalk when the bus driver "lost control and crashed into a sedan," and swerved up onto the curb, smashed through a small brick fence, and slammed into a house. The pedestrian was pinned under the bus, and officials say she suffered severe leg trauma with a partial amputation of her limbs. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott warned today that the city is facing “strong possibility” of a school bus strike next week, one which Bloomberg says would result in "chaos." Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union is threatening to strike over the city's plan to ask for bids for service to transport special education pre-kindergarten children for next school year. “So the union is threatening an illegal strike that would harm the education of more than 152,000 students if it doesn’t get its way. And that’s just outrageous,” Bloomberg said at City Hall earlier. more ›

A New Jersey bus driver probably is looking for a new job after students on her bus busted her for driving them while drunk earlier this week. The Courier Post reports that police in Westampton, New Jersey, have arrested Carole Crockett, 46, and charged her with 25 counts of driving under the influence with a minor, driving under the influence on school property, disorderly conduct and another 25 counts of endangering the welfare of a child for good measure. Luckily, nobody was hurt on Carole Crockett's wild ride. more ›

Now that the city is a week into the school year and everyone's eardrums are growing accustomed to the early-morning shrieks of hyped-up children, it's time to play the classic back-to-school game "School Bus Horror Stories." more ›

A seven-year-old girl in Rosedale, Queens was hit by a school bus after running into the street to escape a neighbor's dog. The girl, Destiny Louigene, is currently in serious but stable condition at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. more ›

The summer's hot and sultry weather conditions can be dangerous for everyone which is why parents are upset at bus companies that take special needs kids to and from school. According to the Daily News, parents have repeatedly complained to the Department of Education about their children's sweaty, steamy commutes (many of which can take over 2 1/2 hours). One parent whose autistic son is "swimming in sweat" after his bus ride said, "Our kids are being cooked alive in these buses. I'm worried about kids getting heatstroke. I'm worried about kids suffering organ failure." more ›

Last Friday morning one Bronx man had enough with those pesky kids leaning out of their fancy school buses and taunting him and his niece. So naturally he stormed up to the back of one of those offending vehicles—a bus for special needs kids—opened the unlocked emergency exit, climbed aboard and started beating on 11-year-old Jameel Grant. more ›

A mini-school bus with nine kids on board crashed head-on into a Capital One bank around 7:40 this morning as it made its way to Brooklyn Middle School Mark Twain. The nine students on board are reportedly fine while the driver suffered injuries from the crash and was taken to Lutheran Medical Center. The kids were taken to Coney Island Hospital as a precaution. more ›

As if it isn't tough enough being a "Special Needs" student in the city's public school system, some students are finding the buses are making getting a good education even harder. Parents say the school buses are running so late that they've made some students miss their first classes almost every day of school, and are making students return home hours late. Matt Berlin, director of the Office of Pupil Transportation, told the Daily News, "We're going to fix it for all the children in New York City schools like we do every year. Late buses are our failure." Until then, homeschooling? more ›

A woman is in critical condition after being hit by an empty school bus in Gravesend yesterday afternoon. The woman was carrying groceries while crossing Ocean Parkway near Avenue X. She had the light, but it changed when she was halfway across the street, and the Grandpa's Bus Co. Inc. bus crashed into her. One witness told the Daily News, "I heard the noise and went to help her. She was already bleeding from [her] head and mouth." more ›

With the NYC 2010-2011 school year's arrival yesterday, students got to experience the Department of Education's decision to cut busing for 7th and 8th graders firsthand. Most of the affected student live on Staten Island, where it was a real mess. One mother of a student at Totten Intermediate School told the Staten Island Advance, "We got there an hour before classes started because we knew it was going to be a nightmare. We were trying to beat out the traffic because we knew all the parents would be driving their kids." Indeed: When she left, the "line of cars waiting to drop off students was backed up farther than she could see." more ›

Even though half of the kids probably won't even be showing up today, it is technically the first day of school! But this year is getting off to a rocky start, with accusations that the Mayor isn't doing his job, and one borough threatening to secede over cuts to school bus services. Besides, we totally don't know what to wear. more ›

A full sized yellow school bus carrying kids to an after-school program hit and pinned a woman in Gravesend yesterday afternoon. The victim was stuck fully conscious under the bus for about 15 minutes before being taken to Lutheran Hospital. The Safe Coach Bus driver said he didn't see her crossing the street at Stillwell Avenue and Kings Highway, and told the Post, "I hope she's not hurt. I don't want to get in trouble." more ›

Earlier this morning, a school bus full of kids was headed to Lincoln Center for a field trip. Unfortunately, there was a detour to the hospital instead for some students, after the bus hit another car on East 63rd Street between First and Second Avenues. According to 1010 WINS, "Officials say 24 students from P.S. 149 and three adults were on the bus. Eleven children have been taken to the hospital." more ›

After announcing it would cut free school lunches for the majority of public school students, the Department of Education revealed it would cut busing for seventh and eight graders, thanks to state budget cuts. NY1 reports, "The DOE says the state only requires that students be bused through sixth grade...a total of 70 schools and about 4,600 students will be affected," with nearly 3,000 of those students on Staten Island. One student predicted, "It's going to be mad different, probably going to be waking up early. It's not going to feel right." The kids will be eligible for free student Metrocards, which the MTA proposed to eliminate next year, so it sounds like business as usual. more ›

Bus driver Roberto Isales and matron Ruth Thames were supposed to drop off little Adrien Long at the Infant & Child Learning Center in Prospect Lefferts Gardens yesterday morning. But driving a bus and minding children can be exhausting, so around 7:30 a.m. Isales parked near his Brighton Beach home and retired for a nap. Thames went home, too. But they both forgot one kinda important thing: Adrian was still in the bus, which—to make matters worse—was unlocked. more ›

A Queens mom is suing a city bus contractor for failing to intervene when her daughter was stabbed repeatedly with a protractor by another student. Mother Samantha Lowe says her 5-year-old daughter Ayannah was stabbed 10 times in the thighs with a protractor on her way to school in November, and has filed suit with the Amboy Bus Co. of Staten Island and the city's education department for negligence in preventing her daughter's injuries. Lowe's lawyer told the Daily News that Lowe received no word of her daughter's injuries until after school, when the school nurse told her Ayannah had been treated for multiple puncture wounds. At press time, thousands of NYC schoolchildren were still armed with these potentially lethal geometry weapons. more ›

Hotly-anticipated peace talks between supporters and opponents of the recently-erased Bedford Avenue bicycle lane fell short last night when both parties left a discussion at Pete's Candy Store in Williamsburg with the same seemingly irreparable differences that they brought to the table. Supporters of the Bedford Avenue lane insisted that a biking path on Brooklyn's longest road is necessary for both transportation and safety, while a community activist representing South Williamsburg's Hasidic Jewish residents expressed concerns about dangerous biking etiquette. more ›

A first-grade boy from Brooklyn, who suffers from a seizure disorder, took a tumble after being hit by a fellow student on his school bus this week... only to receive no help from the driver. According to the Daily News, the driver never even called for help when Armani Baker was clearly injured. Instead he kept driving and dropped the crying boy off at his stop, as he was bleeding from his head. more ›

The bike rider who was run over by a school bus and killed on Delancey Street has been identified as 35-year-old Fuen Bai. The East Village resident reportedly crashed after hitting a pothole near the corner of Orchard Street and was backed over by the bus. In the days since the fatal collision — for which the driver wasn't charged — Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said his office would look into the incident. Cycling activists have put up a memorial for the biker, which reads:

Though we never met I mourn your passing. My heart broke at the news of the tragic loss of your life on this street. I too ride daily these dangerous streets, and had we met, would surely have had many stories to tell. I hope to see you in heaven and maybe share a ride with you there. I am sure the streets are in much better condition.

The female cyclist who died on Delancey Street yesterday hit a pothole and fell behind a school bus, which then backed over her, NY1 reports. The victim was thrown from her bike near the corner of Ludlow Street at around 4:30 pm and happened to land directly behind the bus, according to a witness. more ›

The slow wheels of justice, in action: The Post reports, "The Brooklyn DA lost a child-endangerment case against an allegedly sadistic bus matron before it even got started -- sitting on the charges so long that a judge yesterday tossed the matter altogether." Back in 2006, "Connie Clark, had been charged with allowing P.J. Rossi, a mute, 8-year-old autistic boy from Staten Island, to repeatedly smash his head against a bus window as she taunted him and cracked jokes with the driver." Rossi's mother had put a tape recorder in his backpack, and Clark was recorded saying, as the boy whimpered, "Owwww, shut up, shut up, shut up, you little dog." Rossi's father is furious and regrets, "Instead of going off like a psycho, I did the right thing. I brought it to the Brooklyn DA's Office. And from the day I left there, it was mishandled." Even Clark's own lawyer said, "This case was blown by the DA's Office." more ›

CityRoom has a nice story about how some city school buses, empty during the day with kids in school, are being used to ferry senior citizens to supermarkets: "The elderly often have a difficult time finding fresh produce and healthful foods because of their limited mobility." The program also doesn't cost anything, since the school buses and drivers are there anyway; the city's Department of Aging said, "The fuel costs are in their contract, so there is no increase or decrease whether we used the buses or not." more ›

Yesterday afternoon, a school bus carrying 26 children and a SUV collided into each other—and then into a home's front fence—on Kingdom Avenue at Billou Street in Staten Island's Huguenot section. The Staten Island Advance reports that the Our Lady Star of the Sea School bus had been traveling on Kingdom, while witnesses say the SUV "rolled through a stop sign on Billiou Street, into the path" of the bus. "The front of the bus on the driver's side smashed into the Cadillac's passenger side. The driver's side of the SUV was wedged against a tree toppled in the crash." An 11-year-old student and the SUV's two passengers were treated for minor injuries. The homeowner who found the two vehicles in her front yard told the Post the surrounding streets are a mess, "Everybody is in such a hurry, people run through these [stop] signs all the time. Somebody’s going to get killed," while another neighbor opined, "No one can see the stop signs — or they don’t care. The Escalade blew the stop sign but I’m sure the bus was supposed to be on his block either." more ›

A school bus ride for the nine young summer campers at the Magic Carpet Day Camp turned tragic when their driver dropped dead of a heart attack and collapsed out of the bus while driving yesterday in Queens. Ramon Fernandez, 47, died after losing consciousness while stopped at a red light behind the wheel of a camp school bus in Elmhurst. Fernandez then collapsed out of the door he was keeping open while stopped in order to get additional ventilation into the un-air conditioned bus. When Fernandez fell out, 16-year-old camp counselor Rachel Guzy leaped forward and reached for the emergency brake as the bus slowly rolled into another vehicle in the intersection. The bus matron had minor injuries, but all of the Bayside campers were unharmed. An 11-year-old on board told the Post, "He was driving with the door open because it was really hot, and he felt really hot. It's not normal...Me and my friend, we were in the front near the counselor. She was crying, very nervous after it happened....[Rachel] saved our lives because she pulled the brake." more ›

Last year, a number of Department of Education officials were charged with taking nearly $1 million in bribes from private bus companies. Now the NY Times reports that DOE is examining whether those companies, which transport a fifth of students, "are fit to do business with the city." The companies haven't been charged yet—they are being investigated—but the Times points out, "The city generally avoids doing business with companies that have had a documented role in defrauding it." However, the the bus system is sort of fragile—in early 2007, there are chaos when routes changed, and it seems like school bus companies operate in a world of their own: "The presidents of four of the bus companies said to have paid bribes were also listed as the presidents of seven other bus companies with city contracts, though those companies were not named in the court papers." (Apparently companies share resources.) more ›

Who said preteens don't know how to party? Oh that's right—nobody. Well, a few Connecticut middle schoolers really stepped up to the plate and turned their school bus into a booze cruise on wheels, selling mixed drinks to the other students on board for two dollars each. The Norwalk tween trio used juice, iced tea and Gatorade as mixers, but there was no confirmation of our suspicion that Miley Cyrus thermoses were turned into shakers. School officials are playing party patrol and disciplining the students without police intervention after being tipped off by parents. They claim that none of the students on board the party bus became intoxicated. Which makes us wonder: have these kids already built up a preteen tolerance or were these drinks watered down, thus officially making the junior bartenders the greatest young entrepreneurs since the Olsen twins? more ›