Many of us send our kids off to school each day on the school bus, having trust that our most precious cargo will be kept safe. However, sometimes a news story comes along that causes us to question the trust we have in the bus companies and the drivers they employ.

Late last month, it was reported that a bus driver in Farmington, Connecticut, was drunk when she drove a bus full of 20 middle school students to school one morning. 

According to reports, a police officer had been following the school bus as it made its way to Irving A. Robbins Middle School, and noticed the bus partially swerving off of the road. Once the bus had reached the school, the police officer talked to students who said that the bus driver had been driving poorly.

At that point, the officer gave the driver several field sobriety tests, which she failed, and the driver was asked to submit to two blood-alcohol tests. Both tests showed that the driver’s blood-alcohol content was more than three times the legal limit to drive a commercial vehicle in the state.

What’s perhaps even more alarming is that this was the second time the bus driver had been arrested for drunk driving. The driver was also charged in 2004 with drunk driving but the charges were dropped after she completed Connecticut’s Alcohol Education Program in 2005.

School officials and a spokesperson from the bus company both expressed remorse that the incident had occurred and promised to get to the bottom of it. However, questions remain over how a woman who had been accused of drunk driving in the past ended up with a job driving school children.

Needless to say, if an accident had occurred and children had been injured, the bus company and perhaps the school could have faced liability in a personal injury lawsuit. Luckily for all involved, a police officer identified the dangerous driver before an accident took place.

Source: Fox Connecticut, “Bus Driver Arrested for Drunk Driving Kids Had Past DUI Charge: Police,” Louisa Moller, Aug. 27, 2014