CHANUTE ? A man has been suspended after a bus he was driving ran off a state highway near the site of an earlier accident involving the same driver.

Twelve people were injured Thursday night when a Jefferson Lines bus carrying 27 passengers went off Kansas Highway 47 in Neosho County.

The driver, Bobby Boydston, 66, of Edmond, Okla., said another vehicle was in his lane when he ran off of the road into a ditch.

Boydston gave the same explanation to police when a bus he was driving ran off the highway near the same spot on July 1, injuring four people.

However, witnesses and passengers on the buses during both accidents disputed Boydston’s statements about another vehicle being on the road, Neosho County Sheriff Jim Keith said.

Boydston was suspended after the July 1 accident but had been reinstated. He has been suspended again while Thursday’s accident is investigated, said Dave Aarsvold, vice president of operations for the Minneapolis, Minn.-based Jefferson Lines.

“It’s very concerning to us. It was a strange event,” said Aarsvold. “It was the same driver, at approximately the same location and the same type of accident with the driver claiming he was run off the road by a truck.

“I don’t know if there’s some kind of road rage going on there or what, but at the present time he’s out on suspension,” Aarsvold said.

Aarsvold wouldn’t speculate on how long Boydston would be suspended, or if he’d ever drive a Jefferson Lines bus again.

“Safety is our biggest concern, but I don’t want to speculate,” Aarsvold said. “It depends on the investigation. There could be a lot of issues that went into this wreck.”

Ten of the 12 passengers injured in Thursday’s accident were treated and released at hospitals in Chanute, Fredonia, Parsons and Neodesha. Two passengers were hospitalized at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita. A hospital operator said the two were not listed as patients on Saturday.

The bus was traveling eastbound on K-47, with its last stop before the accident in Kansas City. It was headed to Tulsa until it went off the highway into a ditch. It did not overturn. Another bus took the uninjured passengers to the Thayer Christian Church until another bus could arrive, Keath said.