Annaliese Backner was killed by her own school bus, mother Leandra honors daughter's memory with CSN SafeRide

Mother of 11-Year-Old Killed by a School Bus announces FREE CSN SafeRide" campaign designed to save stidents life free of charge..

ALBUQUERQUE, CA, UNITED STATES, March 13, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- A Mother's Story of Loosing her own child to a preventable School Bus Accident and her fight to channel her grief into a safer way to transport students with the Child Safety Netrwork (CSN).

It’s hard for me to believe that it’s been three years since that tragic March morning when my 11-year-old daughter, Annaliese (“Anna”) Backner, left for her school bus stop. Like many mornings, she was excited to get to school. She had that rare joy and positive energy, always looking toward the amazing possibilities of the future—exactly the kind of child who would never want to miss even a single day of school.

Tragically, on that fateful March morning, my sweet Annaliese was run over and killed by her own school bus—a ride she looked forward to every day. It’s still so surreal that the very 30,000-pound school bus that carried her toward her dreams each morning, a symbol of safety and trust in our community, would become a mother’s worst nightmare.

This bizarre chain of events began when a 76-year-old retired school bus driver named Shaw decided to come out of retirement to drive my daughter’s route. Shaw was reinstated amid a statewide, and national school bus driver shortage—a crisis that still plagues the nation today. It is painful to relive this nightmare, but I must, so that one day, no other parent will have to endure what we have.

Shaw was running late to my daughter’s bus stop. Instead of safely transporting Anna to school, his tardiness set off a tragic sequence of events. Despite the desperate screams from students on board and Anna’s own cries as she ran alongside the bus, Shaw did not have the auditory competence to hear them yelling, “Stop the bus! Anna is right here!”.

Like many school buses, Shaw’s bus was equipped with a video camera that records both video and audio inside the bus. If the voice is loud enough (and it was that morning), the recording picks it up. That’s how we can hear the students pleading for Shaw to stop. Even more heartbreaking is the fact that my own sweet 11-year-old Anna’s voice is audible—begging for him to stop so she could.

Anna was full of dreams, laughter, and a boundless curiosity about the universe. She aspired to be an astrophysicist, inspired by Neil deGrasse Tyson, who later expressed his sorrow over the loss of a bright mind the world will never know. Her absence is a void that never fades, but I have found purpose in ensuring her tragedy isn’t repeated.

The only small solace—if you can call it that—is that my brave little girl took the hit so that someone else’s daughter didn’t. In doing so, she gave me my calling in life. Some might find this hard to believe, but I truly feel that she led me to the Child Safety Network™ (CSN). I believe she told me not to stop working with them on school bus safety training, legislation, and technology—so that her life was not lost in vain and my grief could be transformed into lives saved in her name.

As a Senior Advisor on Pupil Transportation for the Child Safety Network™ (CSN), I advocate for stronger school bus safety regulations, better technology, and improved driver training. It’s my calling, led by Anna’s voice urging me to protect others. In fact, as I write this, I’m helping to set up CSN’s team with school bus professionals in Charlotte from the 19th to the 25th. There, my team at CSN will show the industry how they can save lives and reduce accidents—free of charge—through the CSN Safe Ride campaign, which I helped create alongside all 178 school districts in my former state of Colorado.
The journey is difficult, and grief never leaves, but through advocacy, remembrance, and connection with others who have suffered similar loss, I carry Anna’s spirit forward.

WARD LEBER
CSN
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Anna died while Senator Coram tries to pass a law that would have saved her life and prevented 50% of all other students from harm.