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School Bus Driver Resigns After Riverview Crash That Hurt 11

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By KEITH MORELLI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 5, 2007

Updated: 09/05/2007 02:30 pm

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BRANDON - Eugenia Mitchell Shuler, the Hillsborough County school bus driver cited in a crash Tuesday that slightly injured 11 middle school students, resigned today. She submitted a one-page form letter to the school board office in downtown Tampa.

School district spokeswoman Linda Cobbe confirmed that the 63-year-old quit a day after she was handed tickets for careless driving and not wearing her seat belt in the crash south of Brandon on Tuesday morning.

"She came down today and filled out the paperwork," Cobbe said this afternoon.

Shuler had been on "career observation," or probation, because of two minor school bus accidents in the past year and several complaints filed by parents of the children she shuttled back and forth to school, Cobbe said. The complaints accused Shuler of speeding and using a cell phone while driving the bus, Cobbe said.

An employee on career observation is watched closely by supervisors for a period of time, Cobbe said. At the end of that period, the employee is either taken off probation, fired, or the probation is extended.

Once, a supervisor secretly followed Shuler on her route, Cobbe said. The supervisor noted that Shuler drove 1 or 2 mph over the speed limit, Cobbe said.

The spokeswoman said Shuler was involved in two minor accidents while behind the wheel of her bus, the first of which occurred in February 2006 when she was found guilty of careless driving. No one was injured in that wreck, on 78th Street, but it resulted in four points on Shuler's license, Cobbe said. The second accident was in July and involved Shuler's bus and another bus on a school ramp. Shuler was not cited.

"That was not her fault," Cobbe said.

Nevertheless, school officials were aware of several complaints filed against Shuler, Cobbe said.

Shuler could not be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon.

Dena Temlin filed one such complaint in fall 2006.

Temlin said she cringed when she saw the school bus carrying her middle-school-age daughter around the corner at the end of the day.

"She came around that corner on two wheels," Temlin said Wednesday. She said the driver of that bus was Shuler, whom she recognized in news reports Tuesday night.

Temlin said Shuler was the driver who transported her daughter from Progress Village Middle School to a bus stop at Winston Park in Clair-Mel area and typically approached the stop at a high speed.

"I can't tell you how many times I called complaining about her," Temlin said.

"She would go past the driveway into the park, slam on the brakes and back the bus up real fast into the drive of the park to turn around," Temlin said. "There were kids all over the place."

"My daughter told me that she would fly over the speed humps," Temlin said, "and kids would be flying up and hitting their heads on the ceiling."

Temlin said she called the district's transportation department several times to complain, and school district officials assured her they were investigating. She never heard back from them, she said.

A Safe Mode of Transportation

Meanwhile, other bus drivers say taking children to and from school is as safe as it can be.

Leona McCord stood outside her big yellow school bus, No. 4170, this morning and explained why she loves being a bus driver, having shuttled area students to and from school for the past 28 years.

It's the kids, she said.

They are the fragile cargo she carries, and she relishes the responsibility. A day after Shuler's accident, McCord said the county offers adequate training for bus drivers.

She has a 25-year safe-driving certificate, which means she hasn't gotten into any fender benders or received any traffic citations in that time. New drivers get four days of training, not including the 50-plus hours of training they need for the license. Each year, bus drivers undergo a full day of training, which involves instruction on safety issues and even reflex testing.

"The driving," McCord says, "is pretty much the same."

The training sessions address issues such as controlling the children, making sure the driver's seat belt is buckled, merging onto an interstate highway, what to do at a railroad crossing and how to make turns, she said.

Shuler told deputies she swerved to avoid an armadillo in the road. When she did that, her seat belt broke and she tumbled onto the floor, she told investigators.

The bus driver's training manual says that drivers should "avoid hitting animal(s) only if you can safely do so by careful braking and steering, but do not swerve so drastically as to lose control."

The manual also requires drivers to wear a seat belt at all times.

As far as sudden stops, drivers are instructed to "brake in a way that will keep your vehicle in a straight line and allow you to turn if it becomes necessary."

Most drivers in Hillsborough County follow those rules, a sampling of bus drivers said this morning. And annual courses are enough to keep the instruction fresh in the minds of most drivers.

"We have plenty of training," said Lola Bennett, who has been a school bus driver for seven years.

In spite of all the training, there are plenty of accidents, mostly minor ones that go unreported in the media, said Doug Harwood, who has driven a school bus for 15 years. But that's because of the number of buses on the road and number of miles driven, he said.

"We have plenty of training," he said. The problem, he said, is that drivers sometimes are overloaded, carrying too many students to too many places.

"It takes a toll on the drivers," he said.

Driving a bus isn't very hard, said Patsy Blakeman, who has been behind the wheel for 11 years.

"The hardest thing is probably the publicity," she said, "that everybody is watching you."

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760 or kmorelli@tampatrib.com.

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