Smashed Yellow Suburban

Maybe you noticed our smashed yellow suburban in the parking lot last week? I didn’t blog about it because, well, I didn’t think it was newsworthy. I should have realized it would elicit a reaction and that anyone who saw it might wonder what happened. Randolph being Randolph, I assumed word would travel quickly in our community.

To set the record straight for anyone who didn’t hear the “whole” story, three of our Ag students traveled to Harrisburg with our FFA advisor, Pat Walker. While there, another driver ran a stop sign and despite the fact that Mrs. Walker was traveling slowly as she approached the other vehicle, she did hit them. The police were called and even by the other driver’s own admission, the other driver was completely at fault.

Mrs. Walker and our students were fine, the hotel shuttle picked them up and the Cornell FFA helped out by transporting the small group to the competitions and back in their DOT approved vehicle. Thanks Cornell FFA! And my condolences to Mrs. Walker for the amount of teasing and cajoling she will have to endure from her FFA kids the rest of the year. 😉

We sent another vehicle down for them on the flatbed that went to pick up the suburban–nice thinking Mr. Chambers. It’s important to note that Mrs. Walker is completely 19A certified as a bus driver and therefore has met all of the same requirements as our drivers to transport our students in what is our DOT inspected school vehicle.

I’m not keen on teachers transporting our students anywhere and am still evaluating Randolph’s current practice of requiring incidental teacher drivers to pass a physical and therefore transport students on occasion. I don’t like, never have, and we are reviewing this practice. Even though it’s legitimate in this manner, I’m not sure it’s always our smartest move. At any rate, Pat Walker is in a different league, driving with the same qualifications as our bus drivers.

We are grateful everyone was safe and that they returned home to us as scheduled. As far as getting the suburban fixed. . . that might take a week or two.

2 Comments
  1. Update on the suburban: Unfortunately, it was totaled. We will collect the insurance money for the collision and apply that toward the purchase of a new replacement. We have money in the transportation budget as approved last May so will use that to replace the vehicle.

  2. Glad everyone is a-okay following the accident. As it’s one of your district vehicles (it is isn’t it?) I think it serves another purpose here… I am wondering if students might learn something about the impact of even the slowest crashes here. Not that you don’t want to fix the Suburban and get it back in the fleet, but this might be a great learning opportunity for a lot of folks.

    Again, happy all are safe.

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