School Buses

Suspected Islamic insurgents opened fire on a school bus, killing two Thai paramilitary rangers and wounding three teenage students. The bus was taking 10 students, ages 13 to 18, home from a school in Pattani province when an unknown number of assailants opened fire from a hiding place on the roadside. The rangers were providing security for the students. Three female students, all Buddhists, were taken to a hospital.

Thousands more California students will have to find their own way to school this fall, as districts slash bus routes to cope with budget shortfalls and high fuel costs. Critics worry that the cuts will increase traffic around schools, shift costs to parents already struggling with rising gas prices and prompt more absenteeism, hurting students' academic achievement. But paramount is the fear that the reductions will endanger students as more walk or drive to school.

Two school buses crashed at a bus stop in Monroe, injuring 22 children and a bus driver, authorities said. The elementary-age children and the driver were treated for cuts and bruises, but all were released from hospitals within a few hours, school officials said. The cause of the crash was under investigation.

Driving a school bus, a 10-year-old boy led police on a highway chase for more than 40 miles, authorities said. School officials had reported the bus stolen. Officers from three counties, four towns and the Arkansas State Police were involved in the pursuit of the bus. The driver evaded road spikes but finally slowed down enough for a deputy to force him to stop. Authorities then found that the driver was a boy. He was cuffed, arrested and later released to his parents.

Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters proposed rules to improve the safety of school bus seats and expand use of shoulder belts, but she declined to order seat belts for new buses. Peters said she wanted to increase the height of seat backs on all school buses from 20 inches to 24 inches. Peters also proposed that short school buses, which were more prone to rollovers, begin using shoulder straps.

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.

Smart thinking by a school bus driver resulted in the arrest of a 29-year-old suspected hijacker who had forced her at gunpoint to drive about 200 miles from Compton, authorities said. About five hours into the drive, the 49-year-old bus driver, whose name was not disclosed by police, feigned that she was a diabetic and needed to stop to eat or she would pass out. No children were aboard the bus.

A 9-year-old special education student allegedly pulled a handgun from his backpack and shot and wounded a 10-year-old classmate on a school bus in Compton on Friday morning -- an incident that shook a city already reeling from a year of violence. Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies said the shooting appeared to be accidental. The two boys were en route to a county-run special-needs program at Longfellow Elementary School when the shooting took place about 8:20 a.m.

A 10-year-old Oxnard girl was hit by a school bus and killed while walking to school Thursday, authorities said. Edith Luna, a fifth-grader, was struck shortly before 7:30 a.m. at an intersection a few blocks from Curren Elementary School. The girl was in or near the crosswalk when she was hit, California Highway Patrol spokesman Steve Reid said. The bus, operated by Durham School Services for the Oxnard School District, was carrying five passengers. The accident was under investigation.

An 8-year-old boy has been arrested on a homicide charge after he allegedly released the emergency brake on a school bus that rolled and fatally struck a girl, also 8, police said Tuesday. The girl, Amber Sadiq of Brooklyn, was struck and killed by the runaway bus Monday as she was walking home from school in her Brooklyn neighborhood, police said. Police said the boy had sneaked onto the bus through the rear emergency door and released the vehicle's brake.