This SUV sustained front-end damage on Highway 74 Friday morning when it pulled out in front of an HUSD school bus, which struck it from hehind and drove it into a boulder. There were no injuries. Photo by Jay Pentrack
This SUV sustained front-end damage on Highway 74 Friday morning when it pulled out in front of an HUSD school bus, which struck it from hehind and drove it into a boulder. There were no injuries.
Photo by Jay Pentrack

No students were injured in a traffic crash Friday morning involving a school bus.

At about 8:20 a.m. Friday, a man driving a white SUV pulled out of a dirt road in front of a Hemet Unified School District bus carrying about 40 Tahquitz Valley High School students and traveling westbound on Highway 74. The incident occurred at mile-post marker 51, almost down to Bee Canyon Road, said California Highway Patrol Officer Darren Meyer.

The man made a right-hand turn, also going westbound, and the bus driver tried to avoid the vehicle but rear-ended it, sending it spinning and crashing into a rock with the bus pinning it from behind. “Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place,” Meyer said.

The crash was relatively slow so no one was injured, he said, but both vehicles sustained damage and had to be towed. The school bus lost its right-side mirror and the glass on the passenger door was broken. The SUV sustained major damaged.

Meyer said CHP was able to open up the road within 40 minutes to get the students to school. He did not have the name of the SUV driver.