A school bus from Franklin township veered off the road and into a small ravine in the morning of Tuesday, April 7, 2015 while traveling on Mimosa Lane near the intersection with Acton Road, close to the Interstate 74 and Southeastern Avenue. The bus apparently went over a guardrail and tipped sideways into a ditch as it came to rest. It was transporting high school students from a nearby school at the time of the accident.
The cause of the crash is not known at this time, and authorities have yet to say whether drugs or alcohol may have played a role in this crash. Initial reports indicate that the bus may have hit a bump or curb on the side of the road, causing the vehicle to hit the guardrail and turn halfway over. The bus began to issue forth smoke as the students and driver evacuated the vehicle to safety at the side of the road. The investigation into the details surrounding the crash remains ongoing at this time.
No other vehicles were involved in the accident, nor was anyone on board the bus seriously injured. Ten people were on the bus at the time of the incident, and two of the students on board, as well as the bus driver, were transported to an area hospital for evaluation for minor injuries. All parties are expected to make a full recovery from their injuries.
According to statistics released by the Indiana state government in its annual traffic safety report, there were a total of 82 single-vehicle school-bus collisions in the year 2012 (the last year for which statistics were made available) out of a total of 767 collisions involving school buses. These numbers are out of more than 185,000 collisions which occurred in the state that resulted in personal injury or damage to property, and both total damage collisions and school-bus collisions were down from the previous calendar year.