Parents place amazing amounts of trust in school bus drivers, and one community in Illinois may have trust issues after a drunk-driving bus driver endangered their children’s lives.

An Illinois bus driver was charged with felony DUI after allegedly driving a school bus full of children while under the influence of alcohol.  According to police,  the 54-year-old woman dropped off at least 50 children from Mount Prospect elementary students with a blood alcohol level of 0.226 — three times the legal limit.

Our car accident lawyers hear countless stories of drunk driving accidents that caused serious personal injury or wrongful death.  It continues to amaze us how many people actually risk their own life and the lives of others by making this horrible mistake.  Drunk-drivers are a top cause of car accidents.

This story even more troubling in that children were prominently involved.  Parents give bus drivers a huge level of trust so that their child will get to and from school safely.

According to officials, District 57 the transportation coordinator received a complaint a few hours before the woman was arrested.  A co-worker smelled the alcohol on her breath at about 2:30 pm.  The day before, the coordinator had already received an alcohol complaint regarding this woman. So this time he followed the bus, confronted the driver and called police at about 3:45.

A spokeswoman for the state attorney in Cook County said the woman later admitted to drinking several vodka drinks before driving the kids home that day.

Our car accident attorneys in San Diego wonder why Burden thought it was a good idea to drive children after having several drinks?  Plus, if supervisors were tipped off that she could have been driving drunk then why did they wait over an hour to notify police that something was wrong.  Thankfully, no children were hurt in an automobile accident, but not everyone is so lucky.  Drinking does so much to hinder your abilities, so you shouldn’t risk your life or anyone else by driving drunk and causing an auto accident.

Please contact us for a free consultation with an experienced San Diego car accident attorney — we speak both English and Spanish — at (800) 655-6585.  Click here and you may also submit your case for a FREE REVIEW.