About 12:25 p.m. on Friday, October 14, 2016, a 2007 Ford school bus owned and operated by Mar-Can Transportation, Inc., was eastbound on West Fordham Road in the borough of the Bronx, New York City, New York. The investigation determined that the 47-year-old male driver was operating the bus while off duty, without passengers. (He was scheduled to start his afternoon shift 1 hour later.) As the bus approached the intersection of West Fordham Road and Sedgwick Avenue, the driver attempted to turn right onto Sedgwick Avenue. The bus was traveling in the left through lane on West Fordham Road, with another vehicle beside it in the right lane. The bus driver accelerated and made an abrupt turn in front of the other vehicle, causing its driver to slam on the brakes to avoid colliding with the bus. The bus overshot the turn and ended up on the east side of the double yellow line on Sedgwick Avenue, where it struck a 43-year-old female pedestrian in the crosswalk.
The pedestrian had been walking on the south side of West Fordham Road and was crossing Sedgwick Avenue westbound in the marked crosswalk on a pedestrian WALK signal. Witnesses reported that the pedestrian had just left one of the businesses immediately east of the intersection and was carrying several bags of groceries. Being struck by the school bus caused the pedestrian to fall facedown onto the roadway, where the right front tire of the bus ran over her. Several witnesses screamed at the driver to stop. The driver continued forward, and the bus’s right rear tire ran over the pedestrian.
A second pedestrian, who had been walking across Sedgwick Avenue several feet in front of the struck pedestrian, was unharmed. The struck pedestrian was transported by ambulance to St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, where she died of her injuries.
The temperature at the time of the crash was 59°F, winds were variable at 6.9 mph, and the sky was clear.
We determined that the probable cause of the crash in New York City, New York, was the school bus driver’s failure to stop for the pedestrian crossing the street in a marked crosswalk and on a WALK signal. Contributing to the crash was the driver’s improper turn from the through lane (which included failing to yield to a vehicle in the right lane and turning into the wrong lane of the street the pedestrian was crossing).
