A Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) is required to legally operate a bus in the United States.
But criminals do not care about laws.
And police were shocked by one Florida man’s excuse for driving nearly 300 miles on a stolen bus.
Car thefts and carjackings are a major problem in the United States.
According to a report from the Council on Criminal Justice, motor vehicle thefts increased by 29% in 2023 compared to the previous year.
Between 2019 and 2023, car thefts and carjackings increased by 105% and 93%, respectively.
Rochester, Baltimore, Buffalo, Charlotte, and Cincinnati are the five cities with the highest year-over-year increases in motor vehicle theft between 2022 and 2023 while Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Memphis, Chicago, and Denver have the highest carjacking rates.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that a motor vehicle is stolen every 32 seconds in the United States.
In 2022, Florida had the fourth highest amount of vehicle thefts in the United States with 45,973.
But what is driving the increase in vehicle theft and carjackings remains unknown.
“Many have blamed the surge in auto theft on a social media trend among teenagers that exposes vulnerabilities in certain kinds of cars, especially Kia and Hyundai models,” Stateline reported. “But the varying reliability of motor vehicle theft data at different law enforcement levels and the scarcity of national carjacking data make it hard to determine what — or who — is responsible for the spikes.”
But sometimes people steal vehicles for other reasons, as evidenced by what happened Saturday in Hillsborough County, Florida.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP), 32-year-old Daniel Saez wanted to get to Miami from Tampa badly enough to steal a school bus.
Miami is 280 miles from Tampa, where Daniel Saez began his trip on a stolen bus.
Once on the road, Saez made the four-hour drive to Miami on the school bus.
On Sunday, Saez decided it was time to head back to Tampa and return the stolen school bus before anyone noticed it was missing.
But it was too late for Saez.
Troopers pulled him over in Sarasota, about 60 miles from where the trip began in Tampa.
Saez confessed to stealing the bus and admitted that he was both “high and drunk” at the time.
Police arrested Saez and charged him with grand theft auto and booked him into the county jail.
Saez planned on returning the bus.
But he learned the hard way that “borrowing” a vehicle without permission is still theft.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
