Harrisburg School Van Driver Pleads Guilty To Drugged Driving
The most iconic school transportation vehicle is the yellow school bus. Toddlers point excitedly and mime the motions of the “Wheels on the Bus” song when they see one driving down the road. At the other extremity of childhood, teenagers who are counting the days until they can get their driver’s licenses deride the much-maligned vehicles as “cheese wagons.” Yellow buses are only one of the means of transportation by which children get to school. Drop off and pickup in the family car is a rite of passage for parents, as exhausting as the days when a toddler is too old to nap but too young to listen to reason. Some students live close enough to their schools that they can walk there. In bougie neighborhoods, you sometimes see parents pedaling bicycles while their children ride in a covered compartment behind them; these vehicles are pedicabs in all but name. Transporting children to school is not for the faint of heart. It is a nerve-wracking experience when you are sober, but a crime when you are under the influence of alcohol or drugs. If you got arrested for drugged driving while operating a passenger vehicle in the context of your work, contact a Pittsburgh drug crime lawyer.
DUI Is Even Worse When Children Are in the Vehicle With You
You can get criminal penalties for DUI in Pennsylvania even if you don’t cause an accident; this is an unpleasant surprise for visitors from New Jersey, but it is normal almost everywhere else. If the cause of your intoxication is a controlled substance, rather than alcohol, you can also get separate criminal charges for possession of the drug you ingested just before you got behind the wheel. If you are driving in the context of your job, or if children are in the vehicle with you, then the consequences extend beyond the criminal court. If they are your children and you have a court-ordered parenting plan, the court might order supervised parenting time. Your employer can fire you even if the criminal court does not convict you.
In the News
A school van driver in Harrisburg got pulled over in October when police noticed the van driving erratically. At the time of the traffic stop, there were four students in the van, and they ranged in age from nine to 21. The older students had filmed the bus driver driving erratically and later gave their phone videos to the court to use as evidence. The driver fell asleep while police were talking to her, and she was unable to perform a field sobriety test. A blood test was positive for a variety of controlled substances and prescription drugs, including buprenorphine, Klonopin, Pristiq, Xanax, Soma, Effexor, and Zyprexa.
Contact Gary E. Gerson About Criminal Defense Cases
A criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are facing criminal charges related to driving under the influence of prescription drugs. Contact the law offices of Gary E. Gerson in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania about your case.
Source:
stnonline.com/wire-reports/pennsylvania-school-van-driver-sentenced-to-8-years-in-prison-for-dui/
