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A former Jordan School District bus driver was sentenced Wednesday to a year in jail in connection with a student who was hit and killed after exiting his bus after the driver failed to activate his red lights and signals or stop sign.
Troy Edward Daniels, 44, of Kearns, was sentenced immediately after pleading guilty as charged to class A misdemeanor reckless endangerment and class C misdemeanor passing a school bus while lights flashing failure to signal.
On the afternoon of April 30, the victim, 10-year-old Seleny Crosby, was riding on Daniels' bus when he pulled over on the shoulder of 4000 West to let students off at Cedar Wood Lane (10570 South), according to South Jordan police.
When the girl exited the southbound bus, she immediately ran in front of Daniels' bus to cross 4000 West, and was hit by a second southbound bus, police said.
She died two days later at a hospital.
According to charging documents, when Daniels pulled over, he "deviated from his normal routine" when he "activated his 4-way hazard flashers while offloading students," but "chose not to activate his red lights and signals or stop sign in the lane of travel because he needed to hand out flyers to the students as they offloaded."
South Jordan police officer Sam Winkler has said it was because of the flyers that Daniels deviated from his routine by stopping on the shoulder of the road, rather than remain in his traffic lane.
Daniels admitted that normally, he would be in traffic with the stop sign out and lights activated," Winkler said. "But this time, he pulled to the side of the road ... because he didn't want to delay traffic [while he handed out the flyers]."
The flyers were notices to students that the number of their bus was changing.
Daniels admitted that his actions that day were a deviation from what he had been taught and trained to do while offloading students, according to Winkler.
Daniels told police that in addition to other safety precautions, he normally waits for traffic to stop before offloading students, according to court documents.
About seven students got off the bus before Seleny, who had to cross 4000 West to reach her home, according to court documents.
The driver of the other bus told police that she saw Daniels' bus pulled to the side of the roadway, but because his red light signals and stop sign were not activated, she did not believe he was offloading any students.
She said she was driving below the speed limit as she started to pass Daniels' bus. She said she saw the girl run out in front of her bus and immediately tried to brake and steer away from the girl, but was unable to avoid a collision, according to court documents.
Daniels, who had been a bus driver since August 2011, resigned a few days after the accident, according to Jordan School District officials.
As part of a 365-day probation, Daniels must pay a $3,250 fine.