A school bus driver was drunk, at a level of three times the legal limit, when she dropped students off at the Irving A Robbins Middle School in Farmington, Connecticut on Wednesday morning, according to police.
Police arrested Tammy Costello, 44, of Bristol, a school bus driver for M&J, at school this morning, police said. An officer who was behind Costello’s school bus noticed the right tires swerve and go off the pavement and onto a grassy area, so he followed her, police said.
Twenty students were on the bus and some told a police officer who was greeting them as they got off the bus that the driver had been hitting curbs on the way to school, police said. The officer spoke with the driver and immediately suspected she was drunk.
Costello failed field sobriety tests and was brought to the Farmington Police Department, where breath tests came back at .139, and then .134, which is more than three times the legal limit for someone driving a commercial motor vehicle, police said.
Costello was arrested and charged with driving under the influence, failure to drive right, and 20 counts of risk of injury to a minor.
She was released on a $25,000 non-surety bond and is scheduled to appear in Hartford Superior Court on Sept. 2.
