School bus driver arrested for DUI with 67 children aboard

A Utah school bus driver was arrested Monday on suspicion of DUI after driving erratically and nearly hitting a car on a busy stretch of highway while taking 67 elementary-school students on a field trip, authorities said.
Lycia Martinez, 39, is suspected of having taken prescription anti-anxiety/muscle-relaxer pills, which were found in her purse, Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Blaine Robbins said.


A motorist and a parent on the bus made 911 calls about the swerving, Robbins said. They said several drivers were honking their horns as Martinez failed to stay in the carpool lane.

Patrolmen pulled over the bus on an Interstate 15 off-ramp in the northern Utah city of Draper - about 40 miles south of where the trip started.

The fifth- and sixth-graders on the bus were oblivious to the situation, said the sergeant, who handed out pencils to the students as they were waiting for another bus driver to arrive. That driver shuttled the children the rest of the way to a student council conference at Brigham Young University.

The students came from four different schools in the northern Utah cities of Layton and South Weber, said Davis School District spokesman Chris Williams.
martinez, who has worked for the district for six years without any known previous incident, is on paid administrative leave during the investigation, Williams said.