Ignoring pleas from students to slow down, a Prince George’s County school bus driver swerved along Riverdale Road Wednesday morning before finally flipping the vehicle, according to students on the bus.
“He was trying to be funny,” Shaqual Haskell, 13, said. The bespectacled eighth-grader at Riverdale’s William Wirt Middle School came away from the crash with a sprained neck and a baseball-sized lump on her forehead.
Shaqual and 19 other students were transferred to Prince George’s Hospital Center to be treated for “bumps and bruises,” school officials said, adding there were no serious injuries.
The bus crashed just blocks from the school, which meant that there was a near-capacity load of 44 children on board.
The driver, Antonio Nate Robinson, 46, of Hyattsville, has been issued three citations for the incident: Speeding, reckless driving and failure to wear a seat belt. The resulting fines would equal $435.
The new citations top off seven more traffic infractions in the region over the past 16 years, most recently in 2005 for driving 46 mph in a 30 mph zone, according to court records.
Robinson was transferred to the trauma unit Wednesday after first responders found him unconscious, though he quickly came to.
Investigators said there was no immediate evidence of drug or alcohol use.
Even so, the incident left neighbors and parents wondering how it could’ve happened.
“It’s crazy. People have been complaining about this driver, but it took this to get him fired,” said Tyena Haskell, 28, as she walked her daughter out of the hospital. “It’s terrible.”
Prince George’s schools spokesman John White said crashes are rare.
“This is my first trip to the hospital in four years on the job,” White said. No information was immediately available on accidents involving county buses.
In neighboring Montgomery County, bus drivers are required to undergo 40 hours of classroom training and about 40 more hours behind the wheel, spokeswoman Kate Harrison said. Mentors are assigned as the drivers begin their routes and yearly in-service training cover topics ranging from unruly behavior to students with special needs.
Shaqual remains wary. “I’m OK and I want to go back to school,” she said. “But I don’t really want to get back on the bus.”
Examiner staff writer Freeman Klopott contributed to this story.
