Westchester County school bus driver arrested for drunk driving, with kids on bus

CORTLANDT, N.Y. (WABC) -- A school bus driver in Westchester County with a busload of kids was arrested at 7 a.m. for driving drunk.

Police say Mary Coletti sideswiped a telephone pole in the Town of Cortlandt. There were nearly three dozen students onboard and her blood alcohol level was through the roof.

You can see where the school bus paint scraped off on the telephone pole, the telephone pole that is now split because of the impact. The bus was loaded with kids and everyone knew the driver was behaving oddly.

"She couldn't stop sometimes at the right stop, she'd move like a little, with her brakes, I don't think she was drunk or not," said Scarline Perez, a passenger.

56-year-old Mary Coletti is now charged with felony driving while intoxicated with minors in the vehicle.

35 teenagers were headed for Panas High School.

"I wasn't really paying attention, I was on the phone, and then I heard a big crash, and then everybody got really scared," said Elarias Manaj, a passenger.

Some who were on board said Coletti was swerving, but everyone seemed to realize she was driving deliberately and slowly.

"She was going like 20 miles an hour like up a hill so that was a little sketchy and then she hit the pole like two minutes later," Perez said.

"I thought we weren't going to make it because she was going so slowly, and I didn't think we were going to make it up the hill you have to push it, and then somehow she was just going up the curve and she hits the telephone poll," another passenger said.

"I think it's terrible. No bus driver should ever drink and drive at the same time," the father of a student said.

No one answered the door at Colletti's home Monday night, though there were people talking inside.

She's free on $1,000 bail. Students said Coletti was always strange, but they never imagined this.

"She was never the best driver, but she was never anything crazy," said Casandra Martins, a student.

"How could a bus driver be driving children, and she would have three rounds, that was her first round of students to drive. And then she would have the elementary school and the middle school, very scary," said Esley Mansel, a mother.