A police report is a public document, right? It seems that fact escaped the University Police Department at Texas A&M when officials there were asked for that and other paperwork related to a bus accident in which a 21-year-old student driver ran over and seriously injured a woman on the Texas A&M campus last month.

The Bryan-College Station Eagle newspaper was only able to obtain a copy of the police report after filing a request under the Texas Public Information Act — even though a police report is, according to Freedom of Information lawyers, an open record.

According to this report, the newspaper also was required to file an open records request for a copy of Transportation Services’ handbook and statistics on the number of bus accidents at Texas A&M in 2007 and 2008.

Documents show that 17 wrecks were reported last year, compared with 25 in 2007. Thirty-three of the 42 accidents over the past two years were blamed on driver error, according to reports ... The documents show that 124 accidents involving buses have been reported since 2004 and that the majority — 84 — were classified as the driver’s fault, according to the report. The last previous time an A&M bus accident involved a pedestrian was in 2007, according to the report, which stated that the driver was to blame and that the pedestrian was not injured. An accident in 2006 involved a pedestrian entering the crosswalk and, again, the driver was cited.

Learn more about how the Open Records law works in Texas, and how to create your own request, here.

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