School Bus Driver Rams Helpless Honda Accord Across Parking Lot

You ever wonder why we need such strict modern safety regulations? Yeah. This is why.

On Monday morning, Louisville residents Hari Har Maharana, his wife Nibedita Sohu were taking their three-year-old daughter Savinka for her first day of school. As they backed out of a parking space in the Meadows complex where they live, a Jefferson County Public Schools bus came around the corner and slammed into their Honda Accord.

At this point, when the vehicle you’re driving is met with such resistance and a deafening crunching noise, you usually stop and get out of the car. Apparently not if you’re this bus driver.

The driver in question, whose name hasn’t been released, was reportedly unable to hear or see the car he was callously crushing, despite a bus of nearly 50 students yelling at him to stop and a car honking constantly fifteen feet from his head. It gets more baffling when you realize that it’s illegal in Kentucky for the hard of hearing to drive buses, the driver’s window was open, and that he apparently didn’t notice that his bus had stopped moving for no apparent reason, so he figured he’d just floor it and hope for the best.

You can hear the turbo whooshing as he repeatedly stomps on the gas in this video recorded by a bystander, as well as Maharana smashing the horn in a vain attempt to get the driver’s attention:

All told, the bus made it a whopping 121 feet, where he stopped for some reason instead of continuing into the next county like everyone expected him to. Just a few feet away was an electric utility pole that scared the family in the car more than anything else. Buses reportedly speed through the apartment complex’s parking lots all the time; according to a resident, “the maintenance people even yell at them to slow down, but they don’t listen.”

The bus driver in question has been suspended while JCPS conducts an investigation, but more important is the fact that the family in the Accord survived unscathed. The car itself admirably withstood 15 tons of bus ramming it with all its might, even though the impact area of the bus covered nearly the entire side of the passenger compartment.

I wouldn’t have wanted to have this accident in a Pinto, that’s for sure.