A group of school kids in Washington got a firsthand lesson on drinking and driving after their “crazy” schoolbus driver allegedly took them home while under the influence of alcohol.
48-year-old Catherine Maccarone was arrested and charged with a DUI and reckless endangerment after she was caught on video driving a school bus while intoxicated. Shocking video shows the kids screaming in terror as Maccarone rants about being “crazy” while she allegedly was drunk behind the wheel on September 12.
“Did I mention bus drivers have to be a little bit crazy?” Maccarone yells to her young passengers during the scary ride.
“I am crazy! I’m totally crazy!” the yellow-bus driver says to the kids in the footage, which was released by the students’ school district, Longview, in Washington state near the Oregon border.
At one point in the video, Maccarone repeatedly screams, “No!” — while the children yell at her as she nearly missed crashing into something. Police say the bus driver ran red lights during her drunk driving. Another video clip shows Maccarone ranting about how she planned to be a cop in Los Angeles but claims she had to,
“spend a year being either an informant on the Crips or the Bloods side,” according to KHQ-TV.
Maccarone eventually was arrested after a 10-year-old student got off the bus and called 911 on her, authorities said.
“The bus driver, Catherine, she was drunk,” the unidentified fifth-grader told the 911 dispatcher. “She passed three red lights, and she got on the side road by the 76. And there’s still kids on there.”
Maccarone is due back in court next month. She has since resigned from her driving job, KHQ said.
