Hays CISD releases fatal bus crash video
Newly released dashcam video footage shows the moment a concrete pump truck crashed into a school bus last week, knocking over the bus and killing two people.
The Hays Consolidated Independent School District released the video Thursday in response to an open records request.
The footage shows the truck veering over the highway centerline on Texas 21, then colliding with the school bus about three seconds later. The bus rolled over completely before coming to a stop on one side.
The video shows drivers of other vehicles stopping and rushing toward the bus within a minute of the collision.
The bus was carrying 44 preschoolers from Buda’s Tom Green Elementary and 11 adults. They were returning from a field trip to the Bastrop Zoo just before 2 p.m. Friday. One student, Ulises Rodriguez Montoya, 5, was killed in the crash.
The bus camera video does not show the collision involving a vehicle that was driving behind the
bus. The Texas Department of Public Safety said last week that vehicle struck either the concrete pump truck or the bus, but has not released further information. The driver of that car, Bastrop resident Ryan Wallace, 33, also was killed in the crash.
While DPS said previously that Wallace was driving a Dodge Charger, he was actually driving a 2024 Hyundai, Sgt. Deon Cockrell
said.
DPS has not released any information about the driver of the cement truck, and Cockrell said Thursday that the investigation is ongoing. No charges have been filed at this time, he said.
In addition to the video footage, the Hays school district also released more information about its school bus fleet, including details about seat belts.
The bus involved in the accident was a 2011 model and was one of 15 daily route buses not equipped with seat belts. All buses purchased after 2017 do have seat belts, in compliance with a state law passed that year, district spokesman Tim Savoy said in a written statement.
The district has 21 new buses, all with seat belts, that are currently being outfitted with cameras and GPS equipment. When that is complete “in the coming weeks,” all 109 daily route buses will have seat belts, as well as six spare buses.
But ensuring the entire spare bus fleet has seat belts would be a larger undertaking. Hays CISD currently has 87 spare buses, about 40 of which are in service on any given day for “various duties,” such as field trips or replacing a bus during maintenance, Savoy said.
He said the district would like to have about 40 spare buses with seat belts, which would require purchasing more buses to add to the fleet at a cost of about $160,000 per bus. Savoy said district leaders will discuss that, as well as potential “trip buses,” which are more like coach buses, with the board’s facilities and bond oversight committee.
“We still don’t know whether a seat belt would have made a difference in this accident, and there is much debate about putting seat belts on school buses at all,” Savoy said. “However, for us, the debate is settled because Texas is one of the eight states that require them for newer buses.”
The 2017 law requiring that change was authored by Sen. Sylvia Garcia, D-houston, and came two years after a fatal accident in her district that killed two students. But that wasn’t the first time state legislators tried to address seat belts on school buses.
In 2007, Gov. Rick Perry signed a law requiring seat belts on all school buses purchased after Sept. 1, 2010. Known as “Ashley and Alicia’s Law,” it was passed one year after a motor coach carrying a Beaumont high school soccer team crashed, killing two students and injuring 21 others. But the law said the mandate wouldn’t take effect unless funding was provided to reimburse districts, and much of the money initially allocated for the legislation was cut, resulting in few districts receiving the money for the bus upgrades.