Students Safe Despite Three School Bus Mishaps

Despite having three school bus mishaps within six months, Chattooga County School children have went uninjured in all of these crashes.

The latest crash with a school bus happened at the intersection of South Jones Street and Hwy. 48 around 3:59 p.m. on May 9. Six students were aboard when 49-year-old bus driver Kandy Nixon-Craig took a sharp turn onto South Jones Street and struck a red 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt driven by 19-year-old Destiney P. Soverns, of Summerville.

“Soverns stated that she had pulled up to the intersection of Hwy. 48 and South Jones Street and was waiting to make her turn when [the school bus] made a left hand turn onto South Jones Street from Hwy. 48. [Soverns] stated that she saw that the school bus was going to make contact with her vehicle and she pulled as far right as she could to avoid being hit. [The school] bus struck her anyway. [The bus driver] stated that she had made the turn onto South Jones Street and misjudged clearance and struck [the car],” Summerville Police Officer David Westbrooks reported.

A witness, who was standing on a nearby porch, supported Soverns’ details about the crash.

No one was cited in the crash, according to the accident report.

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This was the third school bus accident within six months. The first and most serious of the three happened in late November.

A Dodge Caravan slammed into the rear of a school bus as it was unloading children at a home on Hwy. 337 in Teloga. None of the children were hurt. The driver of the Caravan, however, was seriously injured.

The second crash, a minor mishap, occurred when a bus slid into a ditch at the intersection of Headricks Road and Sloppy Floyd Lake Road in April. The driver was backing up into a small dirt driveway when his tires slipped into a ditch. Although several student were aboard, no one was hurt.