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Truck hits school bus in Boyle head-on

May 18, 2006|TODD KLEFFMAN

A pickup truck crashed head-on into a Boyle County school bus loaded with students Wednesday afternoon on Wells Landing Road, injuring the truck's driver and shaking up some of the younger students.

"Some of the children were emotional, some were crying, but none of them were injured," said Mike Pittman, the school system's director of pupil personnel, who went to the scene of the accident, which was reported at 3:32 p.m. The bus driver, Dallas Johnson, 59, of Stanford was not injured.

Pittman said 33 students were on the bus when it stopped to drop off a student at 1776 Wells Landing.

The bus had stopped in a "semi-blind curve" in the middle of the narrow road when it was struck head-on by a 2003 Dodge Ram driven by Sherry Herbert, 29, who lives on nearby Stony Point Road, said Boyle Deputy Jody Adams, who investigated.

Herbert suffered a cut on her chin and injured her left leg, Adams said. She was taken to Ephraim McDowell Regional Medical Center for treatment and then to the Boyle County Detention Center, where she was booked on charges unrelated to the accident.

Adams said that two warrants were issued for Herbert in connection to her former employment at Chill's convenience stores. She was charged with unlawful access to a computer and fraudulent use of a credit card and remained in jail this morning under a $12,000 cash bond.

"Poor girl," Adams said. "When it rains, it pours."

The deputy said Herbert was going to pick up her own children at a relative's house when the crash occurred.

"She went into the curve and saw the bus. She tried to react, got off the road, lost control and skidded into the bus," Adams said. "The bus was basically blocking the whole roadway. She couldn't have gotten around it. It was either stop or hit it."

Skid marks of 60 feet indicated that Herbert was driving well above the posted speed limit of 25 mph, Adams said, though he could not give an exact estimate of her speed. No charges are likely to be filed as a result of the accident.

Residents of Well Landing successfully petitioned Boyle County Fiscal Court last year to lower the speed limit from 35 mph to 25 mph, after complaining that many drivers traveled too fast along the road where children frequently play.

Adams said the road is only 16 feet wide where the accident occurred and there is no shoulder but trees are growing up close to the roadway.

"It's a tough road," Pittman said. "We have to travel a lot of them like that. It's a miracle, really, that we don't have something like this happen more often."

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