Schoolbus Safety – Blind Spots and Proper Mirror Use Fatality File

Police Update: School Bus Backed into Parked Car in Blind Spot

There were 29 Roaring Brook School children aboard a DATTCO school bus when the bus driver accidentally backed it into a parked car on Lakeview Boulevard on Tuesday morning while trying to make a turn onto Birchwood Road, police said in the accident report.

The May 28 collision, which happened at 8:39 a.m., was minor, according to police.

Officials from the elementary school on Old Wheeler Lane and the bus company came to the scene, according to police. American Medical Response paramedics “evaluated all passengers” and bus driver Xiaobin Lu, 41, of Avon, police said. No one was injured.

Meriden resident John Zavaglia, the owner of the red 2010 Nissan parked near the house of a friend he was visiting, was not in the car at the time of the accident, police said.

Lu told police that he had to back up to make the righthand turn on the narrow road and did not see the parked car in his rear-view mirrors. The left rear bumper of the bus struck the “right front side” of the car, damaging the front of the car and the passenger mirror, police said. There was also damage to the back end of the bus on the side that hit the car.

The police did not release the names of the children on the bus.

Police gave Lu a verbal warning for unsafe backing.

Source: Patch.com