School bus driver won’t face DUI charge in North Las Vegas crash

William Hoiland was driving about 45 students to Cram Middle School on April 29 when his bus clipped a palm tree, whacking off the right side mirror at the intersection of Scott Robinson Boulevard and Lone Mountain Road in North Las Vegas. No other vehicles were involved and no students were injured, the school district said.

Attempts to reach Hoiland for comment were unsuccessful.

It’s unclear if parents were notified. A replacement bus and driver were called for the Cram students.

At the time of the 7:45 a.m. crash, school police were notified. But about 30 minutes later, a school district transportation investigator told an officer who was still en route that school police were not needed, noting that the scene was under control and that the students were OK, the district said.

Nearly three hours later, school police were called to the district’s northwest valley bus yard because Hoiland had tested positive for alcohol in a standard post-crash drug and alcohol screening, the school district said.

At 9:58 a.m., Hoiland’s initial breath sample indicated he had a blood alcohol level of 0.042 percent. At 10:15 a.m., a second test showed 0.035 percent. The testing device did “not meet the requirements of an evidentiary breath test,” the school district noted in a statement.

The legal limit for drivers in Nevada is 0.08 percent. But the school district operates under a zero-tolerance policy for drugs and alcohol.

“Hoiland was not placed under arrest for driving under the influence because probable cause no longer existed,” the statement continued. “Officers have two hours from the time of the accident where the driver was in physical control of the vehicle to investigate, including a field sobriety test, transporting the subject, and obtaining two evidentiary breath test samples.”

Since the crash happened at 7:45 a.m., probable cause “ceased to exist” at 9:45 a.m., 13 minutes before Hoiland submitted his first breath sample.

“It is extremely difficult for an officer, let alone a typical citizen, to identify intoxication in a level that low,” the school district said.

Hoiland was terminated that day but not arrested. The bus yard director asked if school police would consider any other criminal charges, “but since there was no criminal admissible evidence, police could not recommend any charges,” the school district said.

The week of the crash, the school district announced that two bus drivers had been terminated after testing positive for alcohol but refused to name the drivers.

Through court and jail records, the Las Vegas Review-Journal was able to identify the first driver as Tasianna Caver, 28. She faces one count of DUI and one count of failure to pay full attention while driving after rear-ending a car on April 26 while on the way to pick up students.

No one was injured, but Caver had three times the legal limit of alcohol in her system, the school district said. She had worked as a bus driver since May 2016 and resigned May 2.

After repeated inquiries from the newspaper, the school district released the identity of the other driver.

Hoiland was a probationary employee at the time of the April 29 incident, the school district said. He had been working as a school bus driver since Jan. 22, 2018.

Both bus incidents came at a time when the school district is facing a shortage of licensed bus drivers, exacerbated by low employee morale. On any given day, driver absence rates range from roughly 9 percent to 12 percent, contributing to late buses and consistently late students, the Review-Journal has reported.

Contact Rachel Crosby at rcrosby@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3801. Follow @rachelacrosby on Twitter.