A Berkeley Unified school bus carrying four children was involved in a collision in West Berkeley on Friday morning. Nobody was injured, according to police.
Around 8:45 a.m., the yellow bus collided with another vehicle at the intersection of Bancroft Way and Sacramento Street, said Lt. Andrew Rateaver, a spokesman for the Berkeley Police Department. The California Highway Patrol (CHP) is investigating the cause, he said.
The intersection was blocked for a short time but was clear by 11:30 a.m. No emergency or medical services were called to the scene, said Rateaver.
When the collision happened, the bus was heading eastbound on Bancroft, bringing the students to Hopkins Child Development Center and Cragmont Elementary, according to BUSD spokesman Charles Burress. The district sent two employees to the scene and notified the schools and parents in the wake of the incident, he said. BUSD also contacted California Highway Patrol, which Burress said is required by law.
The bus sustained a small dent in the bumper and was able to continue on its way to Cragmont, Burress said. A second bus came to take the Hopkins student.
The bus is not being taken out of service, but “is not being used today to pick kids up, because the driver was shook up and is taking the rest of the day off,” Burress said.
This morning’s collision was the second involving a bus in Berkeley in as many days. On Thursday morning, an AC Transit bus and a car collided on Ashby Avenue near California Street, then careened into an unoccupied parked truck and two homes. The driver of the car, Kelli Zachery, 27, died. The Berkeley Police Department’s Fatal Accident Investigation Team is investigating that collision.
This story was updated as new information became available.
