Eastern Railroad Discussion > Bus driver pleads guilty in 2000 bus/train wreck

Rhonda Cloer, the Murray County bus driver that ran in front of a CSX train and killing 3 children, has been found guilty for three counts of criminal negligent homicide and four counts of reckless aggravated assault. She will be spending 90 days in jail on good behavior and after spending the 90 days in jail, she is on probation for 4 years. The accident happened on March 28, 2000 when CSX train S213-25 crashed into Cloer's bus. After the accident, the NTSB placed the blame on her at fault of the accident since she did not stop at the crossing, open the door and turned off the radio. To look at the report, here is the link:

http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2001/HAR0103.htm

Jason/Chessie2018

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/0104/27buswreck.html

The AJC article on the court proceedings this week.

Technically the NTSB found Ms. Cloer at fault. Legally she plead guilty.

Civil suits are pending and it will be years before all this is sorted out. Keep the kids that survived, the train crew and the parents of the ones who didn't survive in your prayers.

90 frickin days for killing 3 children and seriously injuring others!!! A slap on the wrist..she needs a slap on the face!

Have a safe day
BMH

Responsibility - How you act when you THINK no one else is watching...

The pending civil suits may aid the parents find more satisfactory closure in this matter. But, of course, that will require the help of the "crooked lawyers" some on this board find so onerous.

It was not an accident. The bus driver chose to move in front of the train. The dead children had no choice.

From the above linkked article --

Chris Pritchett, whose 9-year-old daughter, Amber, was killed, accused Cloer of lying. "She sat right in front of me and told me she stopped that bus," said Pritchett, his voice cracking. "She's had four years with her daughter. I haven't had mine. We had to have a closed casket funeral due to the damage she did to my daughter. Ninety days -- that's bull."

A camera mounted at the rear of the bus showed Cloer driving with the radio on and failing to stop as she crossed the railroad tracks to turn around in a church parking lot. The train split the bus down the middle and dragged part of it 300 feet.

A National Transportation Safety Board report concluded that the probable cause was Cloer's failure to follow proper procedures and stop before crossing the tracks. The report noted that Cloer could not hear the train's horn over the radio.

Cloer's trial was delayed as she attempted to enter a program for first offenders that could have reduced her punishment to probation and erased the case from her criminal record. But prosecutors in Tennessee wouldn't go along.

The relatively light sentence handed down by the judge wasn't much of a suprise either. State laws there in Tennessee are surprisingly lacking in teeth and what Judge Bebb passed on Rhonda Cloer was (as unfortunate as it is) probably the harshest sentence provided for under the Tennessee Code Annotated. In a previous case from 1955, a school bus driver in Spring City, Tennessee was convicted of similar charges involving a grade crossing collision between his bus and a freight train operated by the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway. That collision on August 8, 1955 killed 11 children and injured 39 others. Upon conviction he was sentenced to one year in prison but the sentence was suspended. Both of these incidents serve to illustrate the gross incompetence with which many of our nation's school transportation systems are operated.

For those interested, School Transportation News has a portion of their site dedicated to safety issues concerning school buses and railroad/highway grade crossings. That information can be found under their School Bus Safety section of their site.

She should be in jail for life not 90 days. What a joke.