School bus driver charged in fatal crash

Cary, N.C. — Police on Thursday charged a Wake County school bus driver in a Jan. 5 wreck that killed another driver.

Trumeka Deon Wilson, 28, of 133 Hunt Club Lane, Apt. B in Raleigh, was charged with misdemeanor death by motor vehicle.

Wilson had dropped off students at Cedar Fork Elementary School and was westbound on Morrisville-Carpenter Road when the bus ran off the right side of the road and she overcorrected, police said. The bus crossed the center line and struck the driver's side of a Jeep Grand Cherokee, police said.

The Jeep driver, Lincoln Ross Woods, 25, of Cary, died in the crash. Woods was a Marine who worked as an air traffic controller at Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

"It's just one of those situations where one mistake led to the death of a person," Capt. Mike Williams of the Cary Police Department said.

Wilson and an independent witness told police a silver Taurus ran a stop sign at Good Hope Church Road. Wilson and the witness said she swerved to avoid the Taurus and hit Woods' Jeep, and the driver of the Taurus kept going, they said.

A police investigation determined that the Taurus wasn't a contributing factor to the wreck, Williams said.

"We still would love to talk to the person that was operating that Taurus, but we have determined that was not a significant factor in causing the accident," he said.

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Latest Comments

ur good. i didnt get that she was on a cell phone just by her pic..check ---wakemom

wakemom - How do you think TheAdmiral did it? Just by looking at the picture - wow. Cause she is a female? black? youngish?

I have looked and looked at the pic and justc annot do it. Someday I will be as good as TheAdmiral in assuming things about people just by looking at their face!

endless
January 15, 2009 9:24 p.m.

Accidents often happen because people are careless. I frequently see people dialing, texting, turning around to grab something, when they're driving. There should be stricter punishments when you hit someone else. While there were no kids on the bus, there could have been. All of you saying 'it was just an accident', would you feel the same if a cop shot someone while he accidently unholstered his weapon? What if a daycare worker accidentally dropped a child on its head?

AtALost
January 15, 2009 7:59 p.m.

For those who missed the original story, there were no children on the bus. But if there are and they're acting up, do what many parents should do - pull off the road and deal with it. Too many drivers don't respect the damage they can do when not paying attention on the road.

AtALost
January 15, 2009 7:52 p.m.

Just a note...most buses in NC do NOT have permanent cameras. Cameras are moved from bus to bus when there are discipline issues that are severe. Buses in NC are only equipped to have cameras. A few years ago a study was done on the cost of installing and maintaining cameras. It was prohibitive.

Many counties in NC provide drivers with communication devices such as 2 way radios or cell phones, with restricted usage, for emergency use between the driver and the school or bus depots. Just because a picture of this driver showed her on a cell phone outside of the bus doesn't mean she was using it on the bus when it was in motion.

As much as safe and defensive driving skills are drilled into our heads time and again, no one can predict how they will react when they have to act defensively in a sudden change in a driving situation.

Finally, some bus drivers do disobey basic safety driving skills, but many more are extremely safe. Do not lump all bus drivers into one group.

bus driver
January 15, 2009 7:48 p.m.

The bus driver should have hit the Taurus. Then the driver of the Taurus would have been at fault. Swerving off the road and then over correcting was the fault of the bus driver.

AtALost
January 15, 2009 7:47 p.m.