Metro Bus Driver Problems

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Greenberg & Bederman

 

There is a network called Tru TV on cable, which basically gets most of its material from the world around us. Security cameras, random passersby with video capabilities on their phones, and cameras that are attached to police cars all contribute to the 24 hours per day of reality programming over on Tru TV.

The shows have titles like “World’s Wildest Police Chases” and “World’s Wildest Vacations.” In other words, it’s mostly real life footage of criminals getting chased down or bad things happening to people. We aren’t necessarily fans, mainly because we see enough bad things happen to people through the course of our work as personal injury lawyers in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia. But in the event that the folks over at Tru TV experience a sudden drought of terrifying real-life video footage, we recommend that they head on over the headquarters of the Washington Area Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA for short, Metro for those of us who live in the Washington, D.C. area.) All they would have to do is take a look at the footage of the driver’s-view cameras that are mounted on every Metro Bus and they would have enough for at least half a season’s worth of television.

There is a pedestrian being hit by a Metro bus. There are dozens of near-misses. There is an SUV getting rear-ended. There are collisions in school zones with children nearby. There are red light violations. There are reckless right turns. There are stop signs that might as well have not been there at all. There are bicyclists almost getting hit. All told, there are 134 video clips of near misses, and dozens involving people or cars getting actually hit by busses.

 

You might be asking yourself if this is the accumulation of years of drivecam video footage, considering how many incidents there are. In fact, these are just the noteworthy clips from July to August of 2011. That’s two months with over 150 “incidents.”

We have talked about the various problems with the public transportation available in the D.C. area. Chiefly, we talk about Metro. There are all sorts of smaller public transportation systems available in Maryland and Virginia, but none of them even proportionately come close to having the appalling safety record that exists with the bus system in Metro. It isn’t exactly a secret that there are many bus accidents in D.C. WMATA apparently aren’t very good at getting them off the road and out of the system. For instance, here is a list of the offenses and “punishments” of a particularly bad Metro bus driver: (Bear in mind, the following list falls under “alleged,” but the sources at this website are usually quite reliable.)

  • Hired as a bus driver and is involved in an accident
  • Gets "fired"
  • Gets reinstated as a bus driver
  • Gets "fired" again for another accident
  • Gets transferred to become a TRAIN OPERATOR! (Safety first)
  • Accumulates enough infractions (wrong side doors, platform overshoots, running signals) to be disqualified from ever being a train operator again
  • Becomes the face of Metro as a station manager and as such:
  • Gets a 5-day suspension for disrespecting a Metro Police Officer
  • Gets a 5-day suspension for using a cell phone while on duty
  • Gets a 5-day suspension for regularly taking 2-3 hour lunch breaks
  • Gets a 10-day suspension for locking someone in the station after closing (This was overturned because Metro lost, or couldn't find, the film from the video cameras at the station.)
  • Gets a 12-day suspension for falling asleep on the job after his picture was posted on this blog. (He apparently successfully fought that punishment off after going to the doctor and afterward claiming he had sleep apnea. The other station manager pictured claimed the same thing and got off as well, the source said.)
  • But none of that mattered because he took several months of disability leave after "spraining" his ankle.

Again, this is an alleged list. But if it is true, it is absolutely appalling.

Getting hit by a car is bad. Getting hit by a bus is infinitely worse. A city bus is an enormous, and it carries a lot more weight and momentum than even the largest of SUV’s. A bus that is only traveling at a few miles an hour is capable of doing enormous damage to a human being. We know that, so it goes without saying that WMATA officials know that as well. Why it is they continue to allow unsafe operators to arrive in the system is beyond us. We can only hope they get their act together before more people get hurt or worse.

Greenberg and Bederman is a car accident law firm. We offer legal counsel to those who have been injured by being hit by a car, truck or city bus. If you or a loved one in Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. has been hurt by public transportation due to no fault of your own, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation today. 
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DUI Accident

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Greenberg & Bederman

 

People all over the world are preparing for New Years Eve celebrations. Folks are getting ready for parties and balls, bars and restaurants are hiring more wait staff and bartenders, and parents are hiring baby sitters to look after their kids for the evening. If anything, New Years Eve does bring a minor economic shot in the arm.

There are another few groups of people preparing for New Years Eve. That would be the police and the hospitals.

San Francisco Chronicle, 12/27/11:  Bay Area doctors and emergency workers are bracing for what's likely to be the busiest weekend of the year.

New Year's Eve is typically loaded with alcohol-fueled deaths and injuries, and the coming celebration will probably be worse than most years because it falls on a Saturday, giving revelers a full day of partying and, presumably, a full day of recovery.

Eureka Times Standard, 12/27/2011:Fortuna police officers will participate in a DUI saturation patrol Saturday and will arrest anyone caught driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

 

The Fortuna Police Department, the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office and the California Highway Patrol have been working together between Dec. 16 and Jan. 2 to arrest anyone caught driving while drunk. DUI/driver's license checkpoints, multi-agency DUI task force deployments and roving DUI patrols are scheduled statewide during the Winter Holiday Anti-DUI Campaign. Checkpoints are placed in locations that have the greatest opportunity for deterring drunk or drugged driving.

It is difficult to fathom why it is that so many people continue to think that they can drink and drive. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, despite all the terrible and real examples of what can happen to someone when he gets behind the wheel of a car after he has been drinking.

Drinking and driving accidents already happen with alarming frequency in this country, with one drunken driving accident happening every three minutes on average, and with one drunken driving fatality happening every 40 minutes.

Our area isn’t exactly the worst in the country when it comes to this sort of thing. D.C. is actually listed as the place with the 2nd best environment in terms of a lack of drunken driving fatalities and multiple offenders, but considering that size of Washington, D.C, that might not be a fair comparison. Virginia and Maryland are pretty firmly in the center of the pack, listed at 23rd best environment and 26th best environment, respectively.

For instance, Virginia had 211 DUI traffic fatalities last year, which is 29% of all the traffic fatalities in the state. But this number represents a 13% decline in the number of traffic fatalities. Maryland had 154 DUI fatalities, which is 31% of all traffic fatalities. Maryland also has a pretty large number of repeat offenders on the roads, with over 25,000 drivers with three DUI’s, and just under 4,000 drivers with five DUI’s. (Clearly, some Maryland drivers have not learned any sort of lesson from their experiences with the Maryland legal system. Virginia keeps information about repeat offenders confidential, but if the overall rank is better than Maryland’s, you can make the assumption that there are less repeat offenders on the roads. However, since the overall rankings aren’t that different, you have to imagine that there are at least comparable levels going on between the states.

Nobody can use the excuse that they weren’t aware of the fact that drinking and driving is both dangerous and illegal. There has been no shortage of studies and evidence of the dangers, and there has been no shortage of publicity on the fact that it is illegal. We can only conclude that your average drunk driver has an entirely misguided sense of optimism. “This won’t happen to me.”

It’s the wrong mindset to have, particularly because it isn’t just the drunk driver who is put in danger. Quite often, people get struck and injured or killed by drunk drivers, and these people had the common sense to not drink and drive. People who drink and drive not only seem to deny that there will be any consequences for themselves, but also not any for anyone else. This theory never seems to bear out.

At Greenberg and Bederman, we have offered legal assistance to the victims of drunken driver accidents since 1985, and our attorneys have been helping victims of Maryland, Virginia and D.C. If you or a loved one has been hit and injured due to the actions of a drunken driver over the holidays or at any other time, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free DUI accident consultation.
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