School buses are the safest way for your kids to get to and from school. Statistics show they're far safer, even than riding with a parent. So every day, thousands of parents in Northcentral Wisconsin trust these bus drivers with their most precious cargo.

But no matter how safe a school bus or its driver may be, one factor they can't control is the drivers around them. In March of 2006, a Tri-County school bus taking kids home was stopped along a highway near Plainfield, when it was rear ended by a semi. The State Patrol would later calculate the semi was moving 63 miles per hour at impact.

Six kids were hurt in the crash, and 14-year-old David Senft, Jr. died from his injuries. His mother Julie says she still wonders about the crash every day. "It baffles me”, she said. Truthfully, I do not know how you can miss a big yellow bus."

When the driver of the semi that struck David’s bus, Barry Jacobson, awoke from his coma, he said he didn't remember why he didn't swerve or slow down before crashing into the bus.

He was convicted of homicide by negligent operation of a vehicle, and sentenced to three years of probation. "I don't think we'll ever know exactly what happened. Sometimes that's a very difficult pill to swallow”, says Julie “But we have to continue to go on and remember and our part i think to ensure this doesn't happen again. One child is too many."

Julie has helped with legislation that would ask school districts and bus companies to keep kids out of the back 2 seats of school buses, which she says is termed the 'crumple zone' in rear-impact crashes, and is where David was sitting when he was killed. “That's where the cool people sit, you know. And my son was an incredibly cool kid,” Julie says. “And I don't have him anymore because cool kids sit in the back seat. The cool kids can sit in the 3rd to back seat too, and they'll make it home a little more safely."

She also says those sharing the roads with the big yellow buses need a wake-up call. "It's got flashing lights on it, you really can't miss them”, she says. “But apparently some people are, just for lack of concern, or in too big a hurry, I don't know. But your children are on that bus too.”