A Toyota Highlander crashed into the rear of a Pinellas County school bus at the intersection of Sunset Point Road and Highland Avenue in Clearwater shortly after 2:30 p.m. Thursday. The SUV caught fire, but the bus driver, the only student aboard and the Toyota driver were not seriously injured.
According to WFLA, Clearwater Fire Rescue confirmed the crash’s time and location and said the Toyota caught fire after hitting the back of the bus. The fire damaged the SUV’s front end and left it undrivable. The bus continued forward after the collision and did not catch fire.
WFLA reported that the bus driver and student were not seriously injured. The Toyota driver also was not injured and was cited for careless driving, according to the outlet.
What is known about the bus and its occupants
The available reports do not establish whether the bus’s continued movement affected the extent of the damage or prevented the fire from spreading. They do show that the bus remained operational after the collision and that neither person aboard was seriously injured.
Beyond the careless-driving citation, few other details about the crash have been made public. The evidence reviewed does not identify the student’s age, the school the bus was traveling from, or which agency ultimately issued the Toyota driver’s citation.
Florida school-bus crash data
According to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, Florida recorded almost 3,000 crashes involving school buses in 2022. The verified information available for this article does not provide statewide totals for school-bus-involved crashes, injuries or fatalities in 2023 or 2024, so it cannot establish how those years compared with 2022.
Rear-End Bus Collisions Have Turned Deadly Before in the Area
Rear-end collisions involving school buses are not unheard of in the Tampa Bay region. In December 2015, a man died after rear-ending a school bus in Clearwater, according to a report from NBC Miami at the time.
Another Pinellas County school bus crash made headlines in November 2022, when a Nissan Frontier struck a bus carrying 23 students, with the vehicle’s left front colliding with the back left of the bus, as WTSP reported. Thursday’s Clearwater crash adds another entry to that pattern, though this time the outcome for everyone aboard the bus was far less severe.
