Amarillo Bus Driver Hits Kid At Crosswalk. Did They Get Off Easy?

Approximately one week ago, a 13-year-old student was hit at a crosswalk by a school bus. First things first, the student is ok and suffered what was described as non-life-threatening injuries. However, the student DID end up in the hospital as a result of being hit.

I'm happy the student wasn't severely injured, but they were clearly injured nonetheless. I do however have some questions about what the driver was cited for.

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If someone hits a person with their car, there's a myriad of factors that go into it. Did a person cross in front of the car at the wrong time when they weren't supposed to? Did the driver lose focus and stop paying attention to what they were doing?

Dependent on what factors were in play would determine how to handle the situation. In this particular case, the bus driver stated they "didn't see" the student.

I'm not going to sit here and speculate as to why the driver didn't see the student, that's not my place. The driver was ultimately cited with "not yielding right of way to pedestrian in crosswalk," and went on their way. Now admittedly, I don't know what goes into deciding those things, I leave that to the authorities as they know best.

I do think I was surprised not to see something else though. I mean, the definition of reckless driving states "a person commits reckless driving if the person drives a vehicle in willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property," and the part about “willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property” includes failure to yield to other drivers or pedestrians.

So in theory, shouldn't they have been cited with reckless driving instead of what the actual citation was for? Again, I'm not here to challenge it because I don't know the facts surrounding it, but based on what we know it seems like there's an interpretation to the law here in Texas.