FRIGHTENING VIDEO: Lakewood girl nearly struck by vehicle passing school bus

A Lakewood girl was nearly struck by a vehicle as she crossed the street to her waiting school bus today. 

The incident occurred approximately 9:00AM on Central Avenue.

TLS obtained video surveillance from the school bus  which shows the 9-year-old girl beginning to cross the road, when she needed to stop short in her tracks as a car squeezed between her and the bus – coming within just feet of the child.

The father of the girl tells TLS he phoned police.

”People have to very very alert when driving,” the father told TLS. “The situation could have been very tragic Ch”v.”

 

This content, and any other content on TLS, may not be republished or reproduced without prior permission from TLS. Copying or reproducing our content is both against the law and against Halacha. To inquire about using our content, including videos or photos, email us at [email protected].

Stay up to date with our news alerts by following us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

**Click here to join over 20,000 receiving our Whatsapp Status updates!**

**Click here to join the official TLS WhatsApp Community!**

Got a news tip? Email us at [email protected], Text 415-857-2667, or WhatsApp 609-661-8668.

45 COMMENTS

  1. As much as the car was completely wrong, so was the bus driver. There is a law in NJ that a bus is not allowed to have a child cross a street with double yellow lines- you see clearly that the bus driver is on the wrong side of the street and the child has to cross those yellow lines. I know the routes take longer when following the law, but the law is there for the saftey of our children.

  2. Police can clearly find out who this was. Plates are visible. Hope they fine the driver. Children should not run across the street. Why isn’t the bus picking up this child on the side of road she’s on? This is a very busy road.

  3. I think parents have to teach kids to ALWAYS look both ways before crossing, under all circumstances. No matter if there’s a bus waiting with red lights flashing. As adult drivers, we are taught to check both ways before going after the light turns green, even though it’s our right of way. Cuz we should never take anything for granted. Better to be safe than sorry!

  4. Plate # is clearly visible when video is paused and hopefully video has been passed on to Police as well. I’m sure there’ll be commenters saying it’s mesirah. Really?!?!? What would you call the driver had he hit & Ch’v killed her?!? What if ch’v it was your own child?
    Just because he didn’t hit her, doesn’t mean it should slide. A summons will ensure that the driver is much more careful in the future.

  5. Brooklyn bus drivers do it right. They angle across the road to block both sides. As long as there are idiots like this out there, that’s what had to be done.

  6. Plates are clearly visible and this driver should be caught. Even though he didn’t actually hit the child, he ran straight through a stop sign (the bus) which is completely illegal. The driver was probably just not paying attention to the road or he would have seen the bus and stopped. I am utterly freightened. If you are driving, whatch the road!!!

  7. She was actually using the crosswalk at the time. They probably caught this distracted driver because the plates are visible. This driver needs to understand that he is causing other people to drive like this in such a dangerous way. Some people follow the dangerous ways of others. If he would have hit her, this driver will sink into depression. If you give him a ticket, you are doing him the biggest favor in the world.

  8. Much A Yid –

    Couldn’t agree more…

    I jotted down that license of that Nissan Sentra.

    Now I can do something in my spare time.

    Oh, the bus driver was wrong? Really. The girl was crossing at a CROSSWALK. AND, the perpetrator had to drive around another car that was jutting out into Central.

    This guy is a professional Stop Sign Blower.

    G-D have mercy on us…

  9. It appears the parents are there with the child, and send her across the street thinking she will be safe. It is clearly against the law to pass a school bus displaying the stop sign…..from either direction. Driver was probably too busy talking or texting on the phone to notice.

  10. Devorah is correct. Busses are not allowed to pick up or drop off from across a double lined road. I grew up with my bus stop on central ave, and they never picked us up from the other side. All of us kids knew that. But still, oncoming cars stopped!! And people wonder why SP are flooding lkwd??!

  11. This has happened to my children quite a few times this year. Both of my children have buses that stop across Central Avenue. I have reached out to the LSTA numerous times that it is unacceptable for children ages 11 and 7 to be crossing Central Avenue. I am there with my children every day at the bus stop and see cars fly right by the bus stop sign. The routes should have been changed to the correct side of the avenue. As per the LSTA they’re looking into it. Still waiting!!!!

  12. My son has his stop on the oppsite side of the road too. What
    I do is cross the street with him a few minutes before bus comes so that we could avoid situations like the one posted above.

  13. @Your Shvigger That was a courtesy decision by the Lakewood Board of Education decision for safety. I believe that since the budget cuts, they cannot afford it.

  14. kudos to the girl for looking before running across the street !!! its scary6 t think what ………i think showing this video to the driver will scare the (moderated) out of them from doing it again. perhaps more than the fine…..

  15. I live on pine. Same dangerous situation. My kids bus drops them off without the safety net of flashing lights. When I called the lsta they told me pine street was deemed a safe street to cross! And yes there are double yellow lines. The bus driver said they’re not legally allowed to stop blocking both lanes

  16. I hope the driver gets ticketed and learns his/her lesson. He/She was obviously very wrong for numerous reasons 1. The bus had its stop sign out and I’m sure its lights were flashing. 2. The child was crossing in a crosswalk and the law is that cars must stop for pedestrians in a crosswalk.

  17. What a frightening video! I am glad that the girl saw that car in time & is safe. That driver needs to be found & given a big ticket. Mandatory refresher classes for that driver on how to drive safely would be nice too…

  18. @Your Shvigger That’s exactly what I was saying! It was by choice a Lakewood Board of Education policy due to safety, not a law. Now they cannot afford it, just as they cannot afford all other courtesy and safety bussing.

  19. I’m not condoning the driver but The bus driver needs to be more alert too. The car came at a high speed, the bus driver should not open the door with a car flying into the opposite lane.
    I often see bus drivers fly down a street then quickly stop & open the door ignoring the moving traffic coming from the other direction.
    Some bus drivers in town drive no better than the car in the video.
    The local traffic situation is leading people to drive like chayos.

  20. I live in the area & it is so dangerous the way that buses are picking up the children there, forcing them to cross large streets. Hashem Yishmor!!

  21. It’s not something new, this has always been a problem – all over the world. Just perhaps as the city gets busier, it’s more of a challenge. In Brooklyn, bus drivers will sometimes slant across the road – making it physically impossible for cars to pass!!!
    A solution could be to have more flashing lights on busses. I have seen some that have flashing lights on the ‘flag’ that goes out – the more the better!

  22. I think it’s time for mandatory refresher classes to be enforced by the state once every 2-3 years. This is what happens when one gets used to a situation in life. Believe it or not but there are people who never got the skill of driving. Driving is an art and following rules is not easy. If you have it in you-great but most people don’t. You gotta learn it and master it. The same goes for other areas in life like MARRIAGE, CHINNUCH, Running a business, Household management etc. and sometimes managing your own life. You need to learn the skill. People don’t realize that not everyone can learn on the job. An awareness for this must be brought to the forefront. “People are suffering from the lack of knowledge”. So like the sheliach of Bet Shifra used to say “GET INVOLVED” ☺️. We must start refresher classes for such things it should become the norm like going to BMG.

  23. When in doubt, go to Traffic & Safety and ask for a list of “non-crossable” streets which are deemed dangerous and should be “right-side” restricted. Otherwise, ALL streets in Lakewood are dangerous!

  24. Regarding Mesira,. many Poskim and Gedolim (and even me) are quoted as having said that driving dangerously and transgressing driving laws is a very serious and dangerous Aveira that should be reported to the authorities and is not Mesira.

  25. I’d like to mention a couple of points from a bus driver’s perspective. One, in reply to #25 simple jew : Although there is ever increasing pressure from the constantly growing community causing congestion, new traffic signals & patterns, thereby causing the routes that we have to complete to be in time for the following routes to become increasingly difficult, the majority of bus drivers that I come in contact with, are patient & very courteous both to me, other drivers as well as pedestrians. Secondly, we are not always at liberty to provide the safety that we would prefer to – as mentioned by others i.e. stopping on a slant over the double yellows, or even revising the route so that everyone is dropped off on their side. And lastly, the only near fatal incident I had was when I was coming up Princeton from 5th to 8th. I stopped, & waited to put up my flashing stop sign so that I would not catch anyone in ‘the middle’ giving them that nervous feeling of not knowing what to do. The coast was clear & there were no cars in sight. I opened the door which sends out the stop sign & the boy started to cross the street. From 9th or 10th a car turned onto Princeton & started zooming down the street obviously oblivious to my signal. I sat on the horn & screamed – he stopped within inches of the boy & buried his head in embarrassment. Presently I changed my tactics to try always to stop when there is cars waiting in order to prevent cars from passing on the opposite side.

  26. @two for one
    Children wait by the corner for the bus this driver didn’t expect the girl to run in to the crosswalk being that she didn’t see the stop sign and red lights on the bus

  27. I do know their is a law that where their are no sidewalks the child gets picked up on the right side only. No child should be crossing a street where there are no side walks. I have never heard of a law about picking up a child across double yellow lines in NJ. I am not saying weather it exists or not just never heard of it. I think it would be illegal for a bus to cross the double yellow for pick up. What happens if the car was closer to the line and hit the bus? Who then would be at fault? Big can of worms.

Comments are closed.