A WeGo Public Transit bus carrying several students from City School of Nashville on a field trip collided with a car on Herman Street Wednesday afternoon, sending the car's driver to the hospital. No students aboard the bus were injured in the crash.
Car Turned Into Bus's Path, Police Say
According to the Metro Nashville Police Department, the bus was traveling on Herman Street when a car turned directly into its path. As reported by WSMV, the car's driver was taken to a hospital following the collision but is expected to be okay, per police. WSMV reporter Kassidy Brown noted that the students riding the bus were not hurt in the crash.
Police have not detailed why the car turned into the bus's path, and it remains unclear whether the driver was cited. Under Tennessee Code Annotated § 55-8-129, drivers making turns across oncoming traffic are legally required to yield the right-of-way to any approaching vehicle close enough to pose an immediate hazard, a standard that could be relevant to how investigators ultimately classify fault in the collision, according to Tennessee legal guidance on the statute.
Field Trip Interrupted on a School That Learns Citywide
City School of Nashville, located at 631 2nd Avenue South and formerly known as Templeton Academy, is an independent middle and high school built around project-based learning, with citywide fieldwork as a core part of its curriculum, according to the school's own description of its program. That model regularly puts students on public transit for coursework, which is why a group from the school was aboard a WeGo bus in the first place Wednesday.
WeGo's buses are also outfitted with heavy surveillance capability that could aid any investigation into how the collision unfolded. The transit agency's fleet of roughly 235 to 238 fixed-route buses includes more than 283 security cameras systemwide that regularly record interior aisles and driver areas, per a summary cited on Wikipedia. It remains an open question whether onboard footage from Wednesday's bus has been reviewed or released.
A Growing Ridership, and a History of Yield Citations
Nashville's investment in transit has been paying off in raw numbers. WeGo Public Transit recorded 10.63 million total passenger rides in fiscal year 2025-2026, an 11% increase over the prior year and an 11-year ridership high across Nashville and Davidson County, the agency reported in August. Voters' approval of the citywide Choose How You Move initiative helped fund expanded bus service and free student transit passes, a push that has increased how often local schools rely on WeGo for trips like the one City School of Nashville students were on.
Metro Police crash investigators have handled failure-to-yield cases involving WeGo buses before. In April 2022, police issued a misdemeanor citation to a 43-year-old WeGo bus driver for failure to yield right-of-way resulting in death, after that driver struck and killed a pedestrian on Old Hickory Boulevard West, according to a Metro Nashville government statement. Wednesday's incident involved a car turning into the bus's path rather than the reverse, and no citation status for the driver has been reported.
Crashes Remain a Persistent Problem Countywide
The collision adds to a steady stream of traffic incidents across Davidson County. Metro Nashville recorded 26,152 total traffic collisions countywide in 2024, resulting in more than 8,000 injuries and 116 fatalities, according to crash data cited by ThatCarHitMe.com. Statewide, Tennessee logged 1,045 traffic fatalities in 2025, a 14% decrease from the 1,194 deaths recorded the year before, per the same report.
Metro Nashville has pointed to those kinds of numbers in building its Vision Zero initiative, an effort to eliminate traffic deaths after 468 people were killed in local traffic collisions between 2014 and 2021, according to the city. Wednesday's crash on Herman Street caused no fatalities and left the students unharmed, but it lands in a North Nashville corridor that has already seen serious public safety incidents this year, including the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old on Herman Street near 25th Avenue North on August 21, according to a Metro Nashville Police Department statement relayed by WSMV.
