A school bus based in Rowan County, Kentucky was involved in an accident on the evening of Thursday, September 3, 2015, leaving one student injured. The bus was traveling southbound along Cranston Road, around 10 miles north of Interstate 64, on the way home from a Lewis County middle-school basketball competition when foggy weather interfered with the driver’s ability to control the vehicle and the bus collided with a guard rail near North Fork Bridge before crashing into a ditch on the roadside. Twenty people were reportedly on board at the time of the accident, including two adults and 18 students.
The investigation is still ongoing, but officials from the Rowan County Board of Education have released a statement mentioning that poor visibility due to weather conditions are considered a contributing factor in the accident. The driver underwent drug testing as part of standard post-accident protocol but is not suspected of having been under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time the incident took place. Three students are said to have sustained injuries in the accident, but none of the injuries were life-threatening and all injured parties were back home within 24 hours of the accident. Two students were released after evaluation by first responders at the scene, and the remaining student was transported to Saint Claire Medical Center and released later that night.
Nearby roads were closed for a short time following the accident, but were quickly re-opened. In a report released by the Kentucky State Police, 672 people were said to have died on Kentucky public roads in the year 2014. Between 750 and 850 school buses are involved in traffic accidents on Kentucky roadways, with 90 to 100 of those resulting in injury, according to data released by the Kentucky Transportation Center in partnership with the University of Kentucky’s College of Engineering.