Mother calls for change after son hit by car on way home from school

TRENTON, Mich. – A Trenton mother is calling for change after her son was struck by a car on his way home from school.

Ethan Judd, 11, was on his way home from school riding his bicycle when a driver struck him. He was badly hurt and out of school for a week.

“As soon as that bus passed, I went, and then I got hit by the car and I remember hitting my head,” Ethan Judd said.

“He had a concussion, the right side of his head actually broke out the windshield,” his mother Rachel Judd said.

On his way to and from school Ethan Judd crosses a busy road and often dodges distracted drivers.

“Sometimes they’ll take turns and drive through some red lights,” Ethan Judd said.

Students within a 1.5 mile radius of the school are not automatically provided a bus service. If a parent wants their child to ride the bus in that radius they have to fill out a form and the school will determine if there’s enough room on the bus.

The school board decides the bus routes before the school year starts and the district tries working with parents but sometimes there just isn’t enough room on the bus for more students

“I’m going to see what steps I need to take to get this looked at by the school board,” Rachel Judd said.

Rachel Judd already took the proper steps to get Ethan on a bus after the crash.

The district superintendent, Rodney Wakeham, said the district “does its best to work with parents."

“I worry about other kids in the neighborhood that don’t have that option,” Rachel Judd said.

She doesn’t want another child to get hurt coming home from school.

The driver who hit Ethan Judd has been charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian causing an injury accident.


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Kayla is a Web Producer for ClickOnDetroit. Before she joined the team in 2018 she worked at WILX in Lansing as a digital producer.