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This "patty-eating bus driver" cost Florida's Broward county $100,000

Jonathon Ramsey — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:57:00 EST

Filed under: Etc., Government/Legal, Safety, Videos

Most bus drivers and municipal bus trips are utterly innocuous - you don't remember either of them because nothing happens to make them worth doing so. That wasn't the case with Ursula Wilson's ride with "patty-eating bus driver" Herton Reid in Florida's Broward County.

Not only was Reid eating a Jamaican beef patty - eating while driving a bus is against the rules - he was said to be actively trying to prevent a car in another lane from getting in front of him. When Reid had to slam on the brakes, Wilson, who was standing near the front of the bus, couldn't hold on to the handle, so she fell to the floor, banging her head on the fare box. Reid then proved his disregard for passengers was no fluke when he kept on driving and lunching.

Eventually medical help was called, but it apparently wasn't able to keep Wilson from spending $200,000 for treatment like having discs in her spine fused together. As it turns out, Reid has a troubled history with the city bus service - for instance, he broke five rules of conduct while on a supervised re-training drive with city instructors because of previous instances of bad driving, and he still wasn't fired. Since the injury, he has retired, but before going, he left Broward County - and its taxpayers - with a $100,000 bill to settle Wilson's lawsuit.

The whole story is recapped in detail in the video below (warning: Autoplay).

Continue reading This "patty-eating bus driver" cost Florida's Broward county $100,000

This "patty-eating bus driver" cost Florida's Broward county $100,000 originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Chinese bus companies tell drivers not to hit supercars

Chris Tutor — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:30:00 EST

Filed under: China, Etc., Safety, Work

Being a bus driver in China must be awful. Lots of traffic, lots of people, no tipping. And the job has just gotten worse in Jinghua, where a bus company has instructed its drivers to please stop hitting expensive supercars.

To illustrate the point, drivers were shown a poster with supercar logos to watch out for and how much the associated cars were worth. Hit a Lamborghini, you'll be out 5 million yuan (almost $800,000 USD). And right there, the last vestige of fun was taken away from the under-appreciated Chinese bus driver.

The poster even includes the Shelby Super Cars logo, which can't possibly be all that common in China. Odder still is the omission of the Porsche insignia, which we take to mean it's open season on Boxsters and Caymans.

Chinese bus companies tell drivers not to hit supercars originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PSA: Some states now using school bus-mounted traffic cameras

Jonathon Ramsey — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:30:00 EST

Filed under: Government/Legal, Safety, Technology

City councils and state legislatures across the country are debating and passing initiatives to put traffic cameras on school buses. Rick Gresham, transportation director for the Cobb County school district in Georgia, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that 1,100 motorists pass his school buses when the stop sign paddle is out every single day. The state of Maryland reported 7,200 such incidents in one day last year. For all the folks who want to see that bus-riding children get to class and home safely, that's a problem. So cities in places like Georgia, Connecticut, Maryland, Washington and Louisiana are talking to Redflex and American Traffic Solutions about mounting cameras on their buses' folding stop signs.

In the case of the potential Redflex system in Connecticut, for instance, the school districts would pay a set fee for each bus fitted with a camera. The cameras send a live feed of traffic in both directions to Redflex, where Redflex employees review it. If a motorist is caught violating the stop sign, an image and relevant information is sent to the police department. The school district would receive 82 percent of the ticket amount, the rest going to police and court costs.

A Harris study conducted on behalf of ACS, a Xerox company, found that 77 percent of adults polled supported installation of these cameras on school buses. ACS makes its own system called CrossSafe, so it's certainly interested in a particular result, but as others have said, it's hard to argue against child safety, so this may be the first application of traffic cameras we can really get behind.

PSA: Some states now using school bus-mounted traffic cameras originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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