Log Truck Driver Says He Could Have Killed Children in Accident
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Log Truck Driver Says He's Cut Off By School Bus...
Log Truck Driver Says He's Cut Off By School Bus
It was a scary ride for one truck driver this morning as he went to deliver a load of logs. He was driving along highway 21 close to the Monteith Road, just past where I-95 intersects with 21 when he says the school bus pulled out in front of him.
The concerned driver of that log truck called 3 On Your Side, worried about what could have happened.
“If I had hit that school bus, it would have been my fault and that would have been on my conscience and I would have had to live with what happened to those kids and like I said it’s been on my mind all day. It’s bothered me it still bothers me. I just think it needs to be put out for people to know,“ explains Caleb Cartee, owner/operator of an 18-wheeler.
It was like Caleb Cartee was reliving the experience when we met this afternoon.
Cartee says the parents aren’t out on the roads each morning, so they need to know what’s going on with their child’s bus driver.
He’s also thankful this morning didn’t turn out the way it could have; a tractor trailer carrying 80,000 pounds of logs running over the bus.
“I’ve been thinking about it all day, I mean all day long, you know when you come that close to killing a bus load of kids, you know, it’s something that stays with you,“ explains Cartee.
Truck owner-operator, Caleb Cartee can’t shake the vision of what could have happened. He says luckily, a car in the left lane saw the bus pull out in front of him.
“He saw when I slammed on my brakes the truck squiggling around and he saw that I was trying to stop and he had enough sense that he stopped so that I could whip over and get in the other lane. If he hadn’t have done that, there would have been no way for me to stop. I would have hit the bus,“ he says.
Cartee says he started making phone calls.
“Chatham County, they kept passing me from one person to the next. I never really was able to talk to anybody. They sent me to First alert (Student). They could never give me to anybody directly,“ he details.
“Cartee may not have been able to get answers, but I did. I talked to First Student’s contract manager and he tells me the driver says everything was normal this morning, but that he is going to pull the tapes and the GPS tracking device, which monitors speed and directions turned.“
Cartee hopes his scary situation will help others
“If you seen an 18-wheeler, always keep in mind that it takes us a lot longer to stop than it does for an average vehicle,“ he advises.
Cartee says even empty 18-wheelers take a while to stop because the trailer is still heavy.
I talked to First Student’s contract manager, Randy Samples, late Tuesday afternoon. He says they don’t see any mistakes made by the bus driver through the GPS system, but that they’ll continue looking into the situation and get back to me.
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Reader Reactions
With the later start times First Student isn’t getting children home until after 5 in some cases. I live to close to the school to have a bus come near my house and take my children to school at Pooler Elementary but if my children went to West Chatham they could get a bus ride home to a subdivision that’s just over a mile from the school. I watched one bus driver nearly hit the crossing guard on Hwy 80. I have even seen bus drivers talking on cell phones while driving which is a violation of state law. First student is a joke.
This is insane! You we all know nothing will be done to this driver who is entrusted with the lives of these precious children. I thought the purpose of utilizing the services of First Student was to solve these issues we were experiencing in the past. First Student is the most unreliable company and this is no secret to any of us parents with school aged children. The drivers are not safe drivers, always running late, and the needs and safety of our precious angels are not put first. I am sure there are some drivers who appreciate the sensitivity of the school bus drivers’ job, but something NEEDS to be done about the drivers who can not responsibly handle the lives of our babies. I have never had any luck getting questions answered from First Student. I have two elementary school children who have to walk a good distance to a bus stop where they are no longer in my sight when the bus has to stop at a yeild sign on a corner which is within sight of me and much safer for my children. I am not the only parent on my street who feels this way and their children are having to catch the bus out of sight as well. There are known sex offenders too close to home here and we have all seen how dangerous this situation can be. The driver tells us he is just following his route, although last year it was not a problem for the understanding driver of the bus (whom, this year’s driver enlightened my children, has been in an accident and broken his neck). None of us could get anyone to answer the phone concerning this matter or the tardiness of our children. This is a very serious problem in our county and it would be nice if we could feel secure with the public school bus system.
First Student is riddled with issues. The first day my son rode the bus to elementary school was the start of mine. I followed the bus from school to my sons bus stop on the first day of Kindergarten. In route she ran 2 red lights, that I saw, she lost me several times & I drive a minivan it’s not easy for a bus to loose a minivan unless you drive like a maniac, which she was. She sped through neighborhoods like it was Nascar. Next incident, my son was sitting on his knees wearing pants, when his driver took a sharp turn quickly (because that is how she drives on a regular basis). If she knew he didn’t sit in his seat, which she did, she should have been put in a seat belt which I approved of several occasions. Well that trip ended in the ER with him getting multiple staples in his head. Did they pay for that? No! My bill. And recently the buses that drive through my neighborhood floor the pedal to the medal. My road is 100 yards long. Why do they need to speed through it so quickly? Oh & get this most of the drivers wave to my little 3 year old as the speed by. I bet they wouldn’t be so polite if they ran her over in one of their races to the finish line. This has got to stop. But First Student will not let anyone cut through the Bureaucratic Tape that they are so thickly protected by!
The same thing has happened to me twice in as many weeks.Who are they hiring at first student to transport our chidren to and from school??I also was unable to contact a supervisor when I called to make a complaint.What is going on??
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