South Dakota Collision Between School Bus and Motorcycle Leaves One Dead

A crash between a school bus and a motorcycle in Harrisburg, South Dakota on the evening of Friday, Sept. 5^th, 2014 had a deadly outcome. The driver of the motorcycle—an unidentified male, aged 49—was killed in the collision, and the motorcyclist’s 45-year-old female passenger is currently being treated for severe injuries sustained in the crash at a local hospital. The driver of the bus, a 59-year-old veteran driver with several years of professional driving experience, was uninjured in the crash. The bus had no passengers on it at the time of the crash.

The bus was traveling eastbound on 57^th Street near Western Avenue en route to collect children from a cross-country track activity they had participated in that evening at Yankton Trail Park. The motorcycle was traveling west when the bus allegedly made a left-hand turn into the driveway for the park in the motorcyclist’s path. The bus sustained severe front-end damage as a result of the collision. Neither the driver nor the passenger of the motorcycle appeared to have been wearing any protective gear such as helmets at the time of the accident.

The intersection where the collision occurred is not controlled by traffic signals, and investigators have not yet established fault in the crash, but they do not believe that drugs or alcohol were a factor in this accident. There is no word as this time as to whether or not charges will be filed, or whether the driver of the bus will face disciplinary action from the local school district that employs her.

According to report data from the South Dakota Department of Public Safety, more than 16,000 traffic accidents took place in South Dakota in 2013, leading to a total of 135 fatalities. Nearly 4,000 of 2013 traffic accidents within the state led to injuries. The same survey shows that 12 percent of fatal traffic accidents in 2013 had a motorcycle involved in them, while only 1.6 percent of those accidents involved a bus. The majority of these fatal crashes occurred on rural roadways, with only 10 percent of them taking place on city streets.