School bus driver charged in collision that claimed a life

NOTE: THIS STORY HAS BEEN CORRECTED.

School-bus driver Frederick Poust III had had no sleep for at least 24 hours when he drove 45 students early on Feb. 17 to a Montgomery County middle school.

Furthermore, a county investigation alleged, he had been listening to his iPod through loudspeakers.

And he had been making personal phone calls.

That deadly cocktail, county investigators say, may have led Poust to make a reckless decision that day in Lower Frederick Township. Video from cameras mounted inside the bus showed that Poust turned left from Route 73 without stopping and crashed into an occupied Honda Civic, killing one person.

Passenger Richard Taylor, 27, was pronounced dead at the scene. The car's driver was seriously injured. Five children on the bus suffered minor injuries.

The Montgomery County District Attorney's Office has charged Poust, 38, with homicide by vehicle, 45 counts of recklessly endangering another person, 10 counts of stop-sign violations and other offenses, District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman announced yesterday.

It's not the first time Poust, of Schwenksville, has killed from behind the wheel. In 1999 while driving a car, he ran through a stop sign in Bucks County and killed a two-year-old. He had been dialing a cell phone.

Poust served no jail time; he was given two summary violations.

Bus companies, including Student Transportation of America, which employed Poust, are required by state law to investigate incidents within five years of employment. Poust began driving with STA in March 2009, outside that five-year window, the company said.

Harrisburg legislators intend to revisit those regulations, Ferman said yesterday.

Poust had no sleep the night before the accident because he had worked a second job as a security guard at, Souderton Mennonite Home, a retirement community, investigators said.

The video from that morning showed that Poust exhibited "signs of fatigue, inattentiveness and careless[ness]," according to the affidavit of probable cause. It "captures him rubbing his eyes and facial area numerous times in the hour" before the crash, the affidavit said.

Poust is seen on video blasting through 10 stop signs.

Poust told investigators that when he went to make the left turn, he "slowed down to enter the turning lane and came to a complete stop in the turning lane," according to the affidavit.

Poust said he stopped for "a few seconds. I always stop for a few seconds before turning."