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Driver accused of passing school bus in South Hill, causing deadly crash

SOUTH HILL, Wash. — The Pierce County Sheriff’s Office says one person is dead and another is in the hospital after someone tried to pass a school bus.

It happened Tuesday morning on 122nd Avenue East and 170th Street East in the South Hill area.

Witnesses told deputies that the driver who passed the bus ended up slamming into a white SUV.

The sheriff’s office said the bus was not hit, and no children were hurt.

Deputies say the causing driver is the one who died.

Haley Bishop had just dropped her daughter off at school when her dash cam caught a glimpse of the collision with a plume of smoke going up.

“The guy that was driving the gold car was he was in the back seat pretty much, not in good shape… so we kind of stood back and there was a lady in a white SUV that got hit pretty good she stayed in the car and somebody called her husband and he came right away and helped get gather her belongings,” Bishop said.

The driver of the SUV was taken to the hospital but is expected to be okay.

People who live in this area say traffic safety is an ongoing problem.

“There was just an accident that happened right here a couple of weeks ago and almost took out a fence to my neighbor’s house… it’s just people need to slow down on the street it’s way too fast,” said Tracy Pina, who lives nearby. “Hopefully this is a lesson learned for some people around here that you know speed is not going to get you somewhere faster, it might just kill you.”

122nd Avenue East was shut down for several hours while the investigation was completed.

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