School Bus Drivers

The California Highway Patrol, prompted by mounting concern over the safety of children who ride to school on buses, announced last week that the agency will tighten the application process for school bus drivers to obtain licenses. Robert Rengstorff, chief of enforcement for the CHP, told the Assembly Transportation Committee Thursday that beginning June 1, 180-day temporary licenses will no longer be issued to drivers employed by school districts and private school bus companies.

Frank Edward Ray, the school bus driver hailed as a hero for helping to lead 26 children to safety after a bizarre kidnapping in the San Joaquin Valley town of Chowchilla 36 years ago, has died. He was 91. Ray died Thursday in Chowchilla of complications of cirrhosis of the liver, said his granddaughter, Susan Ray. On the next-to-last day of summer school in July 1976, Ray was driving a busload of children home when he slowed down on tree-lined Avenue 21 for a white van blocking the road.

Chris Davis, a bus driver with the city's school district, has been named Driver of the Year by Ryder Student Transportation. The annual award is given to Ryder's top school bus driver in the Pacific region, which includes California, Oregon and Washington. The Tustin Unified School District contracts with Ryder for its bus service. Davis, who has driven for the district since 1991, was honored by company executives and received a watch, trophy, plaque and gift certificates.

An Orange County school bus driver convicted of molesting and taking pornographic photographs of young girls was sentenced Thursday to 151 years to life in prison, authorities said. Terry Lee Shields, 55, of Buena Park was convicted earlier this month on 15 felony counts, including kidnapping, forcible lewd acts on a minor child and using a minor for sex acts, according to the Orange County district attorney's office. Shields lured his victims -- ages 5, 7, and 11 -- by gaining the trust of their families and in one case by promising a trip to Disneyland, prosecutors said.

More than 600 unionized school bus drivers set up picket lines today, forcing 26,000 public school students who ride the buses to find other transportation to classes.

About 300 bus drivers went on strike over a pay dispute, leaving 18,000 Little Rock students without their regular rides to school. The drivers walked out over the school district's decision to stop paying them for the time they run their buses without passengers. Although some teachers took the day off in support of the drivers, all schools near Little Rock were open.

A school bus driver abducted 10 Santa Ana children and held them for more than an hour, threatening to blow them up, before delivering them to their homes unharmed. Santa Ana Police Lt.

A San Juan Capistrano middle school student released pepper spray on his school bus Tuesday as it returned from a field trip on a busy freeway, sending the overwhelmed driver and three students to a hospital, officials said. The driver and students, all from Marco F. Forster Middle School, were treated and released at Columbia Huntington Beach Hospital and Medical Center, a nursing supervisor said. Pepper spray hampers breathing and causes the eyes to water and close due to swelling.

A school bus driver with five previous drunk-driving convictions who was intoxicated in January when he arrived to pick up a busload of children at Lanai elementary school in Encino pleaded guilty on Thursday to drunk driving and perjury charges.

A Laidlaw Transit school bus driver pleaded no contest to a charge he had sex with a minor, a 15-year-old hearing-impaired Burbank girl he drove to junior high school, authorities said today. Manny G. Acosta, 33, of North Hollywood entered the plea Thursday in Burbank Municipal Court in exchange for a promise from the Los Angeles County district attorney's office not to seek a sentence of more than 16 months in prison.

An Ojai school bus driver was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving after her bus collided with a pickup truck Wednesday while ferrying children to school during her morning run, authorities said. Several dozen children were on board the Ojai Unified School District bus, but no injuries were reported, the California Highway Patrol said. Kim Fullenwider, 53, was driving in the Live Oak Acres area when the accident occurred about 7:30 a.m., the CHP said. She made a U-turn in front of an approaching pickup, whose driver tried to stop but hit the rear of the bus. Fullenwider has been driving for the school district for 19 years.

There are more than 24,000 school buses in California's fleet of belching, lung-corroding "Twinkies" (as kids call those old, yellow, rounded buses), but not one of them has ever stopped for one of my kids or any of the kids I know. We have two issues here: an aged, smog-spewing fleet of school buses, and a city that is jammed with commuters. At 3 p.m. on any weekday in L.A., a lot of those commuters are moms shuttling kids. Let's make city buses accommodate school kids.

The school bus driver was trying to figure out how to come up with more than $10,000 for a cross-country trip with 20 kids leaving the next night when the e-mail and tearful phone calls started pouring in. Hundreds of people wanted to help and some showed up on her doorstep offering bags of granola bars and apples, gasoline and money -- including a check for $10,000. "They were coming. I was crying.

The brakes hissed as Tanya Walters pumped the pedal in the fog of a dark December morning. The school bus driver in big dangly copper-colored earrings slipped on her driving gloves, preparing to pull out of the bus yard. Another driver stopped her to hand over a check for $20. "I'll give you a receipt," Walters told her. "Thank you!" In 11 days, on Christmas, she would leave on an eight-day cross-country trip with 20 teenagers.

A 16-year-old boy was convicted of murder in Dover and sentenced to life in prison for shooting his school bus driver six times after she reported him for using smokeless tobacco. Jason Clinard was 14 when he killed Joyce Gregory, 47. Prosecutors tried him as an adult.

Amid a shortage of school bus drivers, Los Angeles school district officials have alerted parents that routes could be delayed and some students could be late to class until the problem is resolved. The Los Angeles Unified School District relies on four private bus companies to provide about 60% of the 2,075 routes. Those contractors are struggling to attract enough drivers to adequately cover the routes in the 710-square-mile district, said David Palmer, L.A.

School bus driver Isiah Simon plotted his strategy carefully. At stake was the route he would drive when classes resume in a few weeks. He would pick a route close to home so he could spend more time with his family. And he would ask for older kids; older kids are calmer. And he would avoid routes through gang turf. His first choice: Hamilton High School in West Los Angeles. Those kids don't cause trouble as long as he keeps the radio tuned to hip hop.

For years, state Assemblyman George Nakano has tried in vain to get his fellow lawmakers to limit cellphone use by drivers in this car-happy, yack-happy state. But each time irresponsible schlubs like me (and everyone I know) come close to being saved from ourselves by one of Nakano's bills, the wireless companies leap in with a free-speech argument and a lot of lobbying bucks, and the issue goes away.