According to the victim,” The Madison County Schools safety officer conceded that their driver was at fault and wouldn’t attempt to contest that.”
Presumed Ridgeland, MS resident and Redditor /u/1rat_bastid shared surprising dashcam footage of a Madison County Schools bus driver making a right turn and crashing into /u/1rat_bastid who was travelling in the other lane.
Check out the dashcam footage for yourself below.
Hit by a bus [oc]
byu/1rat_bastid inIdiotsInCars
The accident happened in the 100 block of Sunnybrook Rd. in Ridgeland, MS near Crash Champions and the Shell gas station (exact location on Google Maps linked here.)
In the video, we can see OP driving on Sunnybrook Rd at what he claims is 35 MPH.
“This happened on a 35 mph street, not a highway. The right lane I’m in becomes a turn lane at the intersection, I was going to turn right. I assumed the bus was getting in the left turn lane approaching the intersection.”
OP slams on the brakes when he sees the Madison County Schools bus driver suddenly turn to the right.
“I hit the brakes, the road was wet and anti-lock activated…It’s difficult to perceive how much someone is breaking from the video but I promise you, I was standing on the brakes.”
It’s too little too late, and he crashes head on into the bus’s left front fender.
Thankfully, OP reported no injuries whatsoever.
“I’m a School Bus Driver and this is wrong on so many levels. There was absolutely no need to turn right from the farthest lane, no turn signal and clearly no mirror check. That bus could of manipulated that turn very easily. Lazy or incompetent driver…,” /u/Okdoeki commetned.
To /u/OKdoeki’s point, according to a commonly found bus driver’s instructional manual, checking mirrors is the first step in making a turn.
Step 1 is to,
” Be sure to rely on your mirrors when making a turn. And always yield the right of way to pedestrians and other vehicles.”
Furthermore, the manual suggests in Step 1 to constantly watch for problem objects (other drivers) and to keep the turn signal on throughout the turn, two things this Madison County Schools bus driver didn’t do.
It seems to be a pretty cut and dry case in OP’s favor despite, as OP captioned his video, “The bus driver proceeded to blame me.”
“The safety officer from the school district did concede that their driver was at fault and wouldn’t attempt to contest that. So…good news.”
On top of this being another reminder to get a dashcam, this is also a good reminder to make sure your vehicle is in the best shape feasibly possible to mitigate the damage from unforeseen situations.
This situation could’ve turned out a lot worse if his tires were bald or his ABS light was on and non-functional.
It looks to me like the OP was driving over speed l>mit and kept up speed approaching a school bus slowing down. Both were wrong in my opinion and proved once again to me MS has the worst drivers on the road who do not care about anyone but themselves.