A Driver in a pickup truck hit and killed a child crossing the road to get to his school bus stop in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, on Dec. 12.
WNEP reported Silus Hunsinger, 5, was standing with a family member along Rohrsburg Road in Rohrsburg, Greenwood Township, when the incident took place.
The boy was struck while in the roadway.
Police are now investigating the matter. It’s not clear if the driver will face charges.
The local coroner was called to the scene of the crash at around 7:40 a.m., Fox56 reported. The coroner said the 5-year-old died instantly from injuries sustained in the collision.
Silus Hunsinger, 5, was standing with a family member along Rohrsburg Road in Rohrsburg, Greenwood Township, when the incident took place on Dec. 12, 2018. Google Street View
The boy’s manner of death is accidental, the Fox affiliate report said.
Other details about the case are not clear.
Fatal Crashes
In the past month or so, there has been a rash of accidents at school bus stops, leaving several children dead across the United States.
The spate of school bus accidents started in Indiana on Oct. 30, when a driver failed to recognize a school bus’s flashing lights and hit four children who were crossing the street in Rochester to board a bus. The 24-year-old female driver was charged with three counts of reckless homicide following the incident.
A few days later, a 9-year-old child was struck and killed while waiting for a bus stop in Mississippi. A 22-year-old man was charged in the case, according to officials.
Hunter Newman was identified as the driver of the vehicle and was arrested and charged with aggravated assault, KTRK reported. Newman faces up to 60 years in prison if he’s convicted.
And also in Pennsylvania, a 7-year-old boy in Franklin Township was found dead on the side of the road.
“Evidence has shown that the child was run over at a slow speed,” Pennsylvania State Police Troop wrote on Twitter. “A search warrant was obtained for a vehicle that was in the area at the time. The driver has been interviewed.”
Seven people were struck by a vehicle in Tampa, Fla., while waiting at a bus stop on Nov. 1, 2018. Fox
“The bus driver on route arrived at the stop discovering the situation, contacted 911 and remained at the scene until first responders arrived,” Tyrone Area School District Superintendent Cathy Harlow wrote in a Facebook post.
And in Tampa, Florida, five children and two adults were sent to the hospital after a driver hit pedestrians near a bus stop, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
A driver is in custody, and video footage (as seen at the top of the page) shows backpacks strewn across the street.
The driver, who wasn’t identified, stayed after the crash.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which looked at data from the U.S. Department of Transportation, there were 37,461 deaths from car accidents in 2016, the last year where full data is available.
R: Alyssa Shepherd. L: Shepherd's Vehicle. A pickup truck she had been driving hit and killed three children who were on their way to school on Oct. 30, 2018. Indiana State Police
The number means 11.6 deaths per 100,000 people and 1.16 deaths per 100 million miles traveled, although those numbers can vary widely across states.
In Arkansas, the deaths per 100,000 population (18.2) and deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (1.51) are both in the upper edge of the states’ death rates.
The majority of fatal accidents are single-vehicle crashes, the institute noted.
