A driver has been charged after striking a student who was getting off a school bus near the intersection of Myra Street and University Drive in Durham on Tuesday afternoon, according to Durham police. The crash happened around 4:30 p.m., and the student was taken to a local hospital with what police described as minor injuries.
The driver was charged with hitting a student getting off a school bus, according to WRAL, and investigators also charged the driver with a school bus stop-sign violation. Witness Gregory Woolford, who saw the aftermath of the crash, said there were two stretchers at the scene and that the child's mother was one of the people placed on a stretcher, per the same account.
Notably, Durham Public Schools said neither the bus nor the student involved belonged to the district. That detail leaves open a basic question the district's statement doesn't answer: whose bus was it? A police spokesperson said there were no updates on what school the child attends, and also said there were no updates on the child's condition as of the report.
What North Carolina Law Says About Stop-Arm Violations
The stop-sign violation charge is not a minor traffic ticket in North Carolina. Under state law, illegally passing a stopped school bus is typically a Class 1 misdemeanor, but if a driver willfully violates the stop law and physically strikes a person, the charge escalates to a Class I felony carrying a minimum fine of $1,250 and driver's license revocation, according to FindLaw.
Even a standard misdemeanor conviction carries a mandatory minimum fine of $500 and adds five points to a driver's record, according to the Stowe Law Firm. State law also blocks a common escape hatch: North Carolina General Statute § 20-217(e) explicitly prohibits courts from granting a Prayer for Judgment Continued for this offense, according to the North Carolina General Assembly, meaning the driver in this case cannot use that mechanism to avoid a conviction or points on their license.
Durham Schools Push For Camera Enforcement
The crash comes as Durham Public Schools has been actively pursuing technology to catch stop-arm violators. District officials presented an idea in August to improve stop-arm enforcement, and the proposal involves new legislation allowing electronic speed-measurement systems in school zones. That push follows North Carolina Senate Bill 391, enacted in July 2025, which authorized local school systems statewide to deploy automated speed-measuring systems in school zones starting in October 2025, enforcing $250 civil fines that do not add points to a driver's license, per WCNC.
Per INDY Week, Durham district officials are aiming for vendor selection by October and installation of the cameras by January 2027. The urgency behind such measures is grounded in statewide numbers: single-day surveys from state transportation researchers routinely document more than 3,000 illegal school bus passing violations across North Carolina each day, a figure tracked by NC School Bus Safety officials.
A Dangerous Week For Triangle-Area Buses
This crash lands in the middle of a rough stretch for school transportation across the Triangle. One day earlier, 12 middle school students were injured when a school bus crashed in neighboring Franklin County, and Hoodline has previously reported on that crash. That same week also brought word of a Wake County school bus that slammed into a Fuquay-Varina pizza shop, though no children were aboard at the time.
The broader safety picture for North Carolina's young people underscores why officials are treating bus-stop enforcement as urgent. Data from the UNC Highway Safety Research Center found that more than 120,000 school-aged children were involved in motor vehicle crashes across the state in 2024, resulting in 801 severe or fatal injuries. Neighboring Wake County has also been evaluating an expansion of its 27 existing bus stop-arm cameras alongside new school-zone speed cameras, a trend Hoodline covered earlier this year.
WRAL has submitted a public records request and says it is working to get additional information from Durham police. For now, key details remain unresolved, including which school the injured student attends, the child's current condition, and the ownership of the bus involved in Tuesday's crash.
