WAVE 3 News - Louisville, KentuckyJCPS vows to take action on speeding school buses

JCPS vows to take action on speeding school buses

By Eric Flack - bio | email

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - They are trusted to get your kids to and from school safely every day. But a WAVE 3 Troubleshooter investigation has found Jefferson County school bus drivers speeding with kids on board.

Residents said they've been complaining about some of these buses for months but couldn't get anything done. Now, things finally may be changing on Creel Avenue in Louisville's south end. A place where neighbor Mark Gatton said drivers should now take chances.

"A lot of families live here, kids playing," said Gatton, who said he has complained to the school district about the speeding school buses on a number of occasions.

Gatton said Creel Avenue is a narrow, residential street that's filled with children. And Gatton said the speed limit reflects that.

"It's 25," Gatton said. "Posted at both ends of the street."

But it seems not everyone's paying attention.

"I would have to say the worst ones are the school buses," Gatton said of the speeders.

So we grabbed a radar gun to see what just how fast the buses were actually going. For four days, we ran undercover radar on Creel Avenue and every day we clocked school buses exceeding the speed limit.

We caught buses going seven, eight, ten, even eleven miles over the limit. On one day while we were there, we saw five different school buses speeding in an hour and a half. All of them with students on board.

"If they had to stop a bus quick you can't," Gatton said, "because you're going to hurt somebody inside."

Gatton said the buses would end up throwing kids around or hitting whatever was in front of them - a kid, a car, or whatever.

We clocked the worst offender going 32, 35, 36 and 32 miles per hour on the four days we ran radar on Creel Avenue. By comparison, most of the other vehicles that came down the street kept it under thirty.

"I guess they think this is a drag strip or something," Gatton said.

We took what we found to Rick Caple, the JCPS Director of Transportation. He told us that school buses speeding in a neighborhood with kids is inexcusable. So Caple launched his own investigation.

"We went out and checked Creel Avenue after we heard from you," Caple said, "and we found a number of buses speeding."

According to Caple, he clocked four of his drivers going between five and seven miles over the speed limit. That might not sound like much to you, but it is to Caple.

"Speeding in neighborhoods where children play is dangerous," said Caple. "Even five or six miles over is dangerous. We require our drivers to drive the speed limit."

Last year, JCPS wrote up 38 bus drivers for speeding. Another six have faced discipline so far this year, including a bus driver that was clocked by Caple's staff going 20 miles-per-hour over the speed limit on I-64. That driver has now been pulled off the road.

"Other complaints have come in so we've had some major discipline this year," said Caple.

Caple says his department regularly runs radar on its school buses in response to speeding complaints. But Gatton said he called about the buses on his street three times and nothing was done until we got involved. Caple told us he doesn't know how Gatton's complaints got lost in the shuffle.

"I talked to my managers," Caple said. "I don't have the complaint."

Now that he's seen the problem for himself, Caple said all four drivers he caught speeding on Creel Avenue will face disciplinary action, that could range from a written warning and additional training to probation or suspension if they've been caught speeding in school buses before. But Gatton just hopes the district puts the breaks on these drivers before it's too late.

"I'm scared one of these kids are going to get hit," Gatton said. "It's unacceptable."

JCPS is testing out GPS tracking systems in a handful of its buses that would allow Caple to check speed from a computer when complaints come in. But the cost of outfitting the entire bus fleet would be costly. JCPS would have to spend about $500,000 to buy the actual devices, then an additional $250,000 to $300,000 a year for the GPS service once they are installed.

Caple says no decision has been made on whether or not the district has that kind of money to spend right now.

Copyright 2010 WAVE News. All rights reserved.