Eyewitness News learned that the number of accidents involving school buses in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools jumped by almost 9 percent between July and December.
CMS officials said they reported 184 accidents involving school buses from July 1 through Dec.
That is up from 169 reported in the same time in 2015.
“That’s a lot,” said a school bus driver who did not want to be identified.
She said one reason may be an increasing number of unruly students on buses.
“It's like the drivers have no support from the schools. You write the kids up, and they put them right back on the bus,” she said.
CMS says 107 of the 184 accidents were “preventable”, or essentially deemed to be the driver’s fault.
Another driver told Eyewitness News that one reason for that could be the strain created by an ongoing driver shortage.
“Because of the shortage of drivers, the routes have been doubled up, extra routes given to drivers, and it makes for a long day,” she said adding those days can stretch to 10 hours or more.
A CMS spokesman forwarded questions to the system’s director of transportation, but as of late Monday she had not responded.
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