A New Brunswick school bus driver says a student and a motorist are lucky to be alive after a near miss Wednesday morning.
She says the student had to jump out of the way of the moving vehicle.
Bus drivers across the region have been trying to catch drivers' attention, asking them to slow down and stay alert, but they don't feel motorists are getting the message.
“Holy flying furry fig,” said Nancy Hemphill as she took to Facebook on Wednesday morning. She was clearly shaken by what she had just seen.
“It was too close,” Hemphill said. “My stomach is still sick, from what could have happened.”
The Woodstock-area school bus driver says she was stopped, lights flashing, stop sign out – and waiting for a student to step onto the bus.
“I see a vehicle out of the corner of my eye, on my right, so it's coming up from behind on the right hand side of the bus, in his driveway,” said Hemphill. “He had to jump out of the way of that vehicle, so he jumped out of the way, but he jumped in front of the bus to get out of the way of that car.”
She says the vehicle clipped the rear, right corner of the bus and, according to Hemphill, drove along the shoulder of the road, nearly hitting the student trying to get on the bus.
“It was the most devastating thing to see a vehicle coming towards your kid and he wants to get on the bus and he has to throw his book bag in the air and dodge a vehicle,” said Bridget Crouse-Budrow, the student's mother who watched what happened from her window.
While Bridget Crouse-Budrow says her 14-year-old-son is OK -- she's pretty shaken.
Anglophone West School District confirmed the collision happened along Route 104 on Wednesday morning.
There were 19 students on the bus at the time -- and no injuries.
The bus sustained minor damage and the students all had to be switched to another bus.
New Brunswick RCMP says the driver ended up in the ditch -- but no fines or charges were handed down.
Bus driver and CUPE union vice-president Will Thibodeau says many bus drivers are frustrated at the amount of close calls they've seen.
“Once a week minimum,” says Thibodeau. “It’s just devastating to watch. The close calls are too close. It affects you when you go home, it's an ongoing thought.”
The union representing bus drivers in New Brunswick has been campaigning for some time. They are reminding drivers to know the rules -- red, means stop.
Because if you don't, the what-ifs weigh on the people having to watch.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Laura Brown.
