Dead Boy’s Father Pleads for New Policy on Bus Lights : Safety: Laguna Niguel man tells school board that drivers should turn on flashers whenever they stop.

The parents of a 7-year-old who was killed by a pickup truck after he got off a school bus pleaded with school district officials Monday night to require all bus drivers to turn on their flashing lights whenever they stop.

“This accident was inexcusable,” said the boy’s father, Thomas W. Lanni of Laguna Niguel. “The simple flick of a switch could have saved my son’s life.”

The boy, Thomas, was hit by the truck on April 22 as he crossed Aliso Niguel, and died at a hospital.

“All he was was a lost little boy,” his father told the school board. “I’m begging you please, don’t let this happen to another child. These are kindergartners and first-graders. They’re not old enough to take care of themselves.”

The Lanni family has filed a $10-million claim against the Capistrano Unified School District, alleging the bus driver acted improperly by neither flashing his lights nor escorting the first-grader across Aliso Niguel at El Pilar. District officials have 45 days to respond to the complaint, which must be filed and rejected before any civil lawsuit can be brought.

School board officials maintain the bus driver did not use the flashing lights because the driver believed all six students who got off at the stop lived on the same side of Aliso Niguel. Later, school officials said, it was learned that Thomas and three others lived on the other side.

On Monday night, board members made no comment about the flashing lights nor circumstances of the accident, but board President Paul B. Haseman extended the board’s “extreme remorse and sorrow.”

Last week, Orange County Sheriff’s Department investigators concluded that the boy’s death did not involve criminal conduct. The investigators also concluded that neither the bus driver nor the truck driver was responsible.

The district attorney’s office will review the investigation to determine if the bus driver violated the state Vehicle Code by failing to escort Thomas and three other children across the street.

State law allows vehicles on both sides of the street to pass a stopped school bus if the flashing lights are not on, and the pickup truck was traveling within the posted speed limit of 30 m.p.h., according to the investigation. Because the bus driver did not know that some of the children who got off at that stop had to cross Aliso Niguel to get home, the driver was not at fault for not turning on the lights, investigators concluded.

“The primary cause of the accident was Thomas running or walking into the street in front of the school bus,” according to the investigation.

But the Lanni family contends that the tragedy never would have occurred if all bus drivers were required to turn on the flashing lights whenever they stop, not just when the driver knows a child will be crossing the street.

They also say that Barbara Lanni told the bus driver that morning exactly where her son was to be dropped off. But the boy got off one stop earlier, as his mother waited for him several blocks away.

“You have been playing Russian roulette with our children,” Barbara Lanni said, “and my son lost.”