Postscript : Amputee Gets Top Marks as a School Bus Driver

ear after Steve Gaut sued the Department of Motor Vehicles for discriminating against him, he remains the only amputee driving a school bus full time in California.

“Nothing less than excellent,” Max Mattox, his supervisor, said of Gaut’s performance since he began in October. “He’s probably one of our best employees in the department.”

Mattox said Gaut has a perfect driving record and handles students well. “I think it would be a loss for any school district not to have him,” Mattox said.

Gaut, 38, sued the DMV after he was denied a certificate to drive school buses because his left leg has been amputated 5 1/2 inches below the knee. He was injured in a dune buggy accident in 1976, but he wears a Fiberglas prosthesis that has allowed him to develop and sell a 10-acre avocado ranch, run and water ski.

Sacramento officials at first deemed him “medically unfit” to drive school buses, but after he sued in San Diego Superior Court and a judge ordered reconsideration, the Drivers Certificate Action Review Board granted him the certificate by a 2-1 vote in August.

Gaut drove a 91-passenger bus for Fallbrook during the school year along a Camp Pendleton and central Fallbrook route, and he is spending the summer repairing school bus brakes and seat covers to prepare for the district’s regular California Highway Patrol inspections.

He said the legal wrangling was worth it for himself and others with apparent handicaps.

“I enjoy the job and I enjoy the children,” Gaut said. “It was definitely worth it. . . . It’s a lot of fun driving down the street with 91 yelling kids.”

Subjected to a battery of physical tests to prove he was qualified--such as leaping out the back door of a bus and carrying a 100-pound bag--Gaut said regulations prohibiting amputees haven’t kept up with the technology of artificial limbs. He said his spring-equipped ankle allows him to do everything he did formerly, except sprint at his natural speed. “These laws and regulations were made so long ago that they are not up to date with the prostheses they make today,” Gaut said.

But the one member of the board who voted against granting the certificate said no procedural reforms are needed. “The only way to bring out those special few is to deny a certificate and have them appeal,” said Ron Kinney, supervisor of the school transportation unit of the Department of Education in Sacramento. “That really is the way the federal system is, and I see nothing wrong with that.”

Even given Gaut’s record as a driver, Kinney said he would not vote differently today.

“I haven’t got anything against him personally,” Kinney said. “This is an exceptional guy. This guy is a member of the ‘A Team,’ it sounds like. He’s demonstrated his courage and mental attitude. But to say that this is going to be the rule rather than the exception is dangerous, especially when we’re talking about schoolchildren.”

He said the board must consider hypothetical emergency situations, such as when a driver holding up traffic to walk students across the street needs to lunge to ward off an oncoming car. “Perhaps Steve can do that,” he said. “But can every person with an artificial limb? I don’t think it’s worth testing it out on our kids. It’s not his ability that I’m questioning, it’s the people who come after him.”

For now, Gaut is one of Fallbrook’s 22 full-time drivers, making $8.12 an hour and secure until the CHP reviews his qualifications again in four years. “It was a long, drawn-out process,” he said, “but things that are worth it take time.”