Hit-and-Run Spurs Calls for Bus Stop Safety

In the wake of Tuesday's hit-and-run accident at a La Plata school bus stop that left three young children and a teenager injured, some parents and national advocates are calling for the stops to be made safer.

A driver jumped the curb on Glen Albin Road near Route 301 in La Plata about 8:30 a.m. and struck a group of 14 children waiting on the sidewalk for the school bus to nearby Walter J. Mitchell Elementary School. Three of the children, as well as a 17-year-old supervising them, were injured.

The Charles County Sheriff's Office identified the driver as Jacqueline E. Simmons, 29, of King George, Va. Simmons fled the scene, running a stop sign before police apprehended her 20 minutes later and nine miles away, in Waldorf, police said.

She was charged with driving while impaired by a controlled drug substance, among other offenses. Simmons told police that she was addicted to drugs, according to the charging document filed in the case, and was on her way to a methadone clinic in Waldorf.

This week's accident was the second this school year at the Glen Albin Road bus stop. In September, a child was hit by a car as he crossed the street on his way to the bus stop. The child suffered minor injuries, said Charles County public schools spokeswoman Katie O'Malley-Simpson.

Some parents said they are concerned with cars exceeding the speed limit of 25 mph as they come off Route 301 onto Glen Albin.

"Cars are never going the speed limit. Never. They just fly," said Christina Murphy, who before moving out of the neighborhood a few months ago supervised her children and the other youngsters at the bus stop.

"They were like my kids," Murphy said of yesterday's victims. "I was the neighborhood mom. Everybody played at my house and came over and got snacks."

Murphy said she had asked town officials, to no avail, to install speed bumps on the road because she felt it was only a matter of time before an accident occurred.

"It scared me every day [when kids] crossed the road because you just never know," Murphy said. But, she added, "nobody seems to care. Nobody's done anything about it."

About 170 school-age children died in school transportation-related accidents between 1995 and 2005, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. About one-third of them were killed in accidents involving private vehicles.

Alan Ross, president of the National Coalition for School Bus Safety, said incidents like Tuesday's are on the rise.

"It's all too common that we hear of injuries to our children that occur while they're waiting for a school bus," Ross said, adding that the nation needs universal standards for designating school bus stops. "In other words, when you pick a stop for a school bus, we want those stops to be in areas that are more safe."

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.