Charges Not Likely After Bus Fatality

The driver of the school bus that struck and killed a 6-year-old girl will probably not face charges, the California Highway Patrol said Thursday, because her view was impaired by a “blind spot” in front of the bus and because the child’s mother, who was leading her across the street, should have yielded to the bus.

Even though Petra Cruz Castro, 40, had the green light in her favor, CHP spokesman Rhett Price said, she and her daughter Yadira entered a South Los Angeles crosswalk while the bus driven by Katrice W. Jackson was also legally in the intersection.

“We’re not looking to file any charges against the driver or the mother,” Price said. A final ruling on who was in the wrong will be made today, but he added that there was “no gross negligence” on either side.

When the accident occurred Wednesday, Castro was crossing Martin Luther King Boulevard at Trinity Street to take her child to school. Jackson, 21, was driving eastbound along King Boulevard, taking students to Garfield High School.

Price made his comments after investigators re-enacted the incident that claimed the life of the Trinity Street Elementary School first-grader. The mother, according to the CHP, was slightly injured.

Price said pedestrians in intersections are subject to the same state vehicle code provisions concerning a right of way as cars. “The bus entered the intersection on a green light and was not speeding,” he said. “The vehicle code states that when you have the green light you may proceed but you shall yield . . . to all vehicles lawfully within the intersection prior to the green light.”

The blind spot in front of the bus driven by Jackson prevented her from seeing anyone below 5 feet, 7 inches in height, Price said, and the two pedestrians were shorter than that.

“There’s no design flaw” in such buses, Price said. “It’s true of any oversized vehicle. Every vehicle has a blind spot. School buses meet federal regulatory standards and state standards.”

Federal and state standards specify the metals, glass and other materials used to manufacture school buses, as well as the mirrors used to see outside the bus, said Fred Dowdle, a CHP analyst in Sacramento. Don Costan, administrative manager for the state Office of Traffic Safety, said that the required mirrors have virtually eliminated the problem of children being run over in front of buses. “It’s a very rare occurrence,” he said.

Los Angeles Unified School District spokesman Pat Spencer said he had no knowledge of any similar accident in the district.

Neither Castro nor the bus driver was present at the re-enactment. Price said investigators determined that the bus had stopped at the southwest corner of the intersection to pick up students before the accident and had just started moving. Although the city delays the opposing green light at Trinity an extra three seconds, to allow vehicles on King to get through the 158-foot intersection, Price said the CHP has determined that the bus took “eight or nine seconds to build up enough speed to get across.”

Price said a second bus that witnesses thought might have been racing with Jackson’s bus was in fact disabled along the side of the street and did not play a role in the accident.

Jackson, a resident of Compton, is a driver for Embree Buses, a company owned by Mark IV Charter Lines, working under contract for the school district. Jackson, through a family member, declined to be interviewed, and the company also refused to comment on the accident. Efforts to reach Castro were unsuccessful.