Bus

Mike Smith appeared dazed in the moments after his horse, Bodemeister, was again beaten by Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another - this time by a neck in Saturday's Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course . The veteran jockey wore the frozen smile of a man hardly able to fathom what had just transpired. "I swear I don't know how he ran me down, man," Smith said after trainer Bob Baffert approached in the fading sunlight. "You did a good job," the 59-year-old trainer told the 46-year-old jockey, a fellow Hall of Famer and former Preakness winner who recently passed 5,000 career victories.

Roy W. Spence, a businessman who founded a Baltimore bus company and was an active churchman, died Saturday of complications from internal bleeding at Northwest Hospital. The Pikesville resident was 84. Born and raised in Camden, N.C., Mr. Spence attended public schools until he was forced to drop out to help support his family as a farm and mill worker after his father became ill. His family moved in 1948 to Delaware and two years later to Baltimore. Mr. Spence worked as a truck driver for Yale Transport and later the old Silber's Bakery.

Anne Arundel County officials said two people have been seriously injured following an early morning crash Wednesday that involved a school bus and car in Odenton. No students were on the bus when the accident occurred at 6:40 a.m. at Route 170, also known as Telegraph Road, near Crossroads Drive. The collision and ensuing investigation shut down Route 170 for nearly two hours. Police have released few details of the crash and have not identified the victims, but said one 25-year-old man sustained life-threatening injuries.

My child's school bus driver is a pleasure to greet every school-day morning. She always has a big smile and a kind word and wave. So, being curious about the world of school bus drivers, I asked a friend's school bus-driving daughter what kind of holiday and end-of-year gifts she likes to get the most. Her reply was that she gets no gifts from her students' or their families. She said that anything she could use to bridge the gap over the summer such as gift cards, coffee, cards, would be greatly appreciated.

As the bus rumbled through the streets of East Baltimore, Dana Seibert proudly displayed his handcrafted creation of bright green and orange paper. It read: "My homemade Christmas card to a very special mom. " Seibert, a downtown resident who was taking the No. 35 bus on the way to see his mother, was one of many Baltimoreans whose Christmas activities were made possible by the Maryland Transit Administration — whose employees were working on a morning when many Marylanders were home opening presents under the tree.

The problem: An Ednor Gardens bus stop lacked a sign. The back story: Ralph Williams rides the No. 3 bus often to his Northeast Baltimore home, and he sometimes disembarks a few stops early to visit friends who live off Loch Raven Boulevard near The Alameda. That trip has gotten a little more complicated in the past month, however, because signs marking northbound stops on the east side of Loch Raven Boulevard at Greendale Road have gone missing. One might have been removed after a collision in that area, Williams said, because there was a cone where the pole with the sign on it used to stand.

An Owings Mills contractor who has offered the Archdiocese of Baltimore $700,000 to offset transportation costs for children displaced by the closing of 12 elementary schools has taken to the airwaves, encouraging families to take advantage of his offer. He's been on the radio before. Danny Schuster, owner of a concrete company, is well known for his advertisements protesting recent Catholic school closings. He has taken a different tack this time, hoping to boost enrollment by helping students get to schools, including Holy Angels, an elementary the archdiocese is opening this fall on the campus of Seton Keough High School.

The claim that the Charm City Circulator bus arrives every 10 minutes is not accurate. It's more like 15 minutes. Once this week, I waited a half-hour. But all in all, this new strategy to navigate downtown Baltimore seems to be working. I give the city credit for some innovative thinking. This week, I watched families load their children and baby strollers for transport to the harbor. Senior citizens seemed to be running their errands courtesy of the bus. I observed older teens saving a bit of money using the bus to get to summer jobs.

A three-vehicle crash that included a city school bus sent five people to the hospital Monday afternoon, according to fire officials. The cause of the crash, which occurred about 4 p.m. in the 600 block of Patapsco Ave. in Southwest Baltimore, was unclear, Chief Kevin Cartwright, a spokesman for the Baltimore Fire Department, said Monday night. Cartwright did not know whether any children were injured, though he said the bus "didn't suffer the brunt of the damages. " Dispatches emailed to The Baltimore Sun from the Firefighters Union Local 734 said two people were extricated from vehicles and that a man and a woman, both 22, were taken to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

A bus company that served Baltimore has been shut down by federal transportation officials for being an "imminent hazard" to public safety. Double Happyness Travel Inc., of Huntingdon Valley, Pa., was found in violation of regulations on driver fitness, drug and alcohol testing, unsafe driving and vehicle maintenance by inspectors for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The six inspections covered the period from June 24 to Nov. 18. Double Happyness Travel operated 19 motor coaches that provided low-cost service between New York City and Baltimore, Wilmington, Del., and Albany, N.Y. Text TERPS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun Terps sports text alerts

A party bus company that promised "luxury charter buses" to the Sweetlife Music Festival Saturday is facing a major backlash and thousands of dollars in refunds after it left hundreds of customers stranded. Numaan Akram, founder and CEO of Rock & Bus, conceded Monday the company screwed up and was working through "hundreds" of complaints to offer refunds to disgruntled customers. "Unfortunately, we had a serious problem," he said. On Saturday, some 1,800 people had booked transportation to the festival through the company, Akram said.

Free circulator bus service will be extended to Fort McHenry in Locust Point, city officials said Monday. Called the Banner Route, the new service will provide a free bus link to the historic site beginning in June, in time for bicentennial celebrations of the War of 1812. U.S. Rep. John P. Sarbanes joined Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and his father, former Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes, in announcing the Charm City Circulator service to Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine on Fort Avenue.

This week "The Amazing Race"is all about hardcore competition. You think it was hardcore before? Have you ever seen a contestant stare death in the face, debate death versus a million bucks, and choose death? That's what I'm talking about.   Remember last week in Africa when JJ took his ball and went home and now he's dead to me? He's still mad. He'll even recap why he's mad, and Art will join in so we know that both of them are equally idiotic. Let's just forget about it and move on to India.

Anne Arundel County officials said two people have been seriously injured following an early morning crash Wednesday that involved a school bus and car in Odenton. No students were on the bus when the accident occurred at 6:40 a.m. at Route 170, also known as Telegraph Road, near Crossroads Drive. The collision and ensuing investigation shut down Route 170 for nearly two hours. Police have released few details of the crash and have not identified the victims, but said one 25-year-old man sustained life-threatening injuries.

An article in the March 26, 1936 edition of The Catonsville Herald and Baltimore Countian reported on a weekday afternoon accident in which a school bus was overturned and a car destroyed. Six children were injured as were the two occupants of the car. A hearing will be held by Magistrate John W. Loeber in the Catonsville police court on April 1 on the accident on Tuesday afternoon at Ingleside Avenue and Old Frederick Road, when an automobile crashed into a Catonsville school bus. The accident occurred at about half past three.

Seven people were hospitalized Sunday morning after a vehicle collided with a "mobility" bus that was transporting five special-needs passengers, Anne Arundel County fire and police officials said. The two-vehicle accident — which occurred on College Parkway near Peninsula Farm Road, in the Arnold area of Anne Arundel County — was reported around 8:23 a.m., according to Anne Arundel Fire Division Chief Michael Cox. All of the victims were taken to area hospitals with minor injuries, Cox said.

An elementary- or middle-school-age student was shot in the face Thursday while waiting for the bus by what city school police believe was a bb-gun pellet, city school officials said. The incident happened at about 4:45 p.m. in the 2000 block of Fayette St., near Commodore John Rodgers Elementary/Middle School, where the victim is a student, officials said in a statement Friday. The student was struck above the eye, and did not suffer any major injuries, the statement said.

An 86-year-old Harford County woman who was injured in a collision between a car and a school bus in Abingdon on Feb. 7 has died, the Harford County Sheriff's Office said Friday evening. Sheriff's office spokesperson Monica Worrell said she had been notified of the death of Marguerite Gude, of Joppa, but did not have any details about the date, place or cause of death. Worrell said the information would be forthcoming when she receives it. Ms. Gude was a passenger in a 2002 Ford Focus driven by her son, Earl Justus Gude Jr., 60, of the same Joppa address, when it collided with a Harford County school bus on Route 7 near Mill Road in Abingdon around 8:47 a.m. on Feb. 7. One person was trapped in a vehicle after an accident involving a car and school bus in Abingdon early Tuesday morning, the Harford County Sheriff's Office said.

Elger Joseph Huber Sr., a retired stationary engineer who helped produce the distinctive blue Noxzema and Bromo-Seltzer glass containers and was later a school bus driver, died of respiratory failure Monday at Howard County General Hospital. The North Laurel resident was 87. Born in Baltimore, he grew up on the grounds of Lake Roland, where his father worked for the city's Division of Water Supply. The family of 13 lived in a house in what is now Robert E. Lee Park. He attended city public schools.