Doing something about it
 

Complaint filed this morning (some details have been changed so I can continue to pretend I have some anonymity):

Re: Driver of bus #5634, apx. 7:30 a.m., 6/3/04, on First Street between Third and Second.

When I was on a bicycle in the second to left lane of First Street (moving over to the far left lane, where I needed to be in half a block to make a left turn), one of your buses pulled through a stop sign out from the alley directly in Second of me. I had to quickly move over 2 lanes to avoid hitting the bus or having the bus hitting me. The driver eventually stopped in the middle of the intersection of the alley and First Street.

I was wearing a bright red shirt. My bike was red with bright yellow saddle bags. There was no excuse not to see me.

I do not know what bus line it was, but "5635" was the number of the bus. The driver was an older white man with a gray beard.

Normally, your drivers are some of the courteous on the road toward cyclists. I wish all drivers were as good as yours. But this driver was the exception.

I think that when drivers of identifiable vehicles do something dangerous, we should file complaints.

Good for you.
Complaining doesn't help at all, taking action does.

Thanks

I completely agree! In fact, I was thinking that would be a good idea when in an automobile as well.

Absolutely! I've done that when driving. There was one company's vehicle that I used to see every morning at the same time on my morning commute. He would cut in and out of traffice, at times causing others to slam on their brakes. His company vehicle was extremely large, too big for racetrack-type driving. I called the company and I think they took care of the situation, 'cause I didn't see the driver driving like that again.

You may not get anywhere with your complaint. I used to be a fleet manager, and complaints from someone other then law enforcment or a customer are largly ignored.

I filed a similar complaint to our bus service here in Portland. I also noted in my complaint, as you did, that the majority of their drivers that I encounter are courteous and vigilant in their awareness. The shift supervisor responded, and he indicated that the drivers would be reminded to watch for pedestrians and cyclists.

Since I wasn't hurt when the bus sideswiped me, that's all I could really hope for - that the drivers are reminded so that we (cyclists) are on their mind while they're driving.

Now, if that particular driver has a pattern history of negligent driving, then I imagine that the company would probably take more drastic action for fear of litigation should something more serious happen.

Then the thing to do is report the incident to both agencies (the bus company and local law enforcement). In both cases, request a reply as to what is being / will be done. Request to be notified if either agency has contacted / will contact the other about the incident (they're usually both agencies of the same municipal govt, after all). Your response from both may be "neither of us are doing jack about it", but at least it then becomes a matter of public record.

Best of luck with your complaint! I applaud anyone who speaks up when they know they followed the rules of the road and still had a near-miss or an accident. Speaking from experience, the metro lines in Seattle are notorious for ignoring customer complaints. Hopefully Colombus metro has a greater sense of pride and customer service than Seattle metro does. And most importantly I'm glad you didn't get hit!

This is the most important reason to complain. If this is the driver's one and only mess up in twenty years on the job, he shouldn't be given more than a reprimand. But if this is the fifth incident this year. . . .

I agree 100%. I report MARTA operators who drive dangerously or violate the law. Every time I've done so, MARTA has called me back and reported to me whatever actions they've taken towards the drivers in question.

In such situations it might also be a good idea to keep the registration number of the vehicle in a safe place just in case the company decides not to do anything about it (not beyond the realms of possibility). Should this happen, your next stop should be the police.

I had a driver do something stoopid once and I got a complaint from someone who saw it. When the driver returned, I asked him about it and he looked at me with this dumb expression on his face and said "How did they know who to call?" I looked at him in total disbelief and said "You're driving a truck with your employers name and phone number on it, not on one side, but three. How do you think they knew who to call?" He didn't last much after that.

Just out of curiosity (and without asking for specifics), just what sort of actions were taken wrt. those drivers?

A friend of mine (who happened to be a truck driver, BTW) recommended that you get the info on the truck if you can do so safely and then complain to their insurance company! That happens to be very effective. I used to see a certain Houston based oil-company's trucks driving on my daily commute through Fort Worth like they were late for a hot date. After e-mailing their insurance company with specifics a few times that suddenly changed. I still see them driving through town at least a couple of times a week and it's been a couple of years at least since I've seen one behaving badly. There is a DOT website (it's been a few years and I don't recall the URL off hand, but a search of google should turn it up) where you can obtain the insurance company contact information for any US-registered commercial operator.

That's so obvious, I'm dumbstruck! Never crossed my mind that an insurance company would be more than a bit concerned about such behavior and that the threat of raising the company's rates might get them to clean up their act. . . Good suggestion HalfHearted, thanks.

Personally, I'd like to see the state of Texas (all states, but that's where I live) maintain an online database cross linking vehicle registration data for all motor vehicles with the insurance carrier. I think we'd see a lot less road rage if you could go to a website and report bad driving with a couple of mouse clicks. It wouldn't cost much to set up, either. 'Bout the third or fourth time some clown gets dropped or has his rates raised he might get the message that running folks off the road to shave five seconds off his precious commute isn't such a good idea :)

This would also solve the problem that is rampant down here where folks go buy insurance just long enough to get their registration or driver's license renewed and then drop the insurance. If the state actually maintained the information of who your insurance carrier is, and the carriers were required to notify the state when a policy lapses, you could just about eliminated uninsured drivers very quickly. Right now all they do is look at your "proof of insurance card" and say, "duh, okay." Even the POI card is so easy to fake it's ridiculous. I recently switched to an online insurance company and my "insurance card" when I went to renew my registration was a printout of the on-screen confirmation. I could fake that in about 20 seconds using MS Word...

Halfhearted, you've stumbled on something great. Now we just need to send this idea to the bike league or some orginization (insurance company maybe?) that could get it to the right people. I would think the insurance companies would love this idea since they would be getting more money. Bravo.

Incidentally, Murray's coaches are going to be getting a report about one of their drivers - 10am on O'Reilly's road, about 5km from Green Mountains. Why they even allow buses of that size on such a narrow moutain road is beyond me, the fact that they allow such dipwads to drive them simply defies logic.

Here is the response I got from the complaint. Given that this was one incident, it seems fair to me.

It's amazing how many people have had bad experiences with the bus. It not just one place but ALL over the world!

In New York City, the bus drivers are under pressure to cover a certain distance with a period of time. As a result, they drive like crazies all over town. In fact, a passenger can complain if the driver is too slow and get him moved to another line!

If you ever get on a bus, you'll quickly discover why these men and women have so much road rage.

Actually, our city bus drivers are generally some of the most courteous people on the road. And I said that in my initial complaint. This driver was the exception.

Not to absolve the bus drivers of blame because I think each driver or vehicle operator needs to be responsible for their individual actions (in aviation, this is the concept of Pilot-In-Command... the buck stops at the PIC), but I agree that bus drivers are sometimes stuck in a sticky spot (almost literally). The congestion found in the inner city has gotten so bad that it's sometimes hard for transit operators to make timely schedules. One way to streamline this might be to impose limits (either by vehicle type and or time-based) on when certain types of traffic can be on the city streets. Also maybe allowing for special prioritisation of mass-transit with special traffic control signals would help too. Around my area, there are some surface streets that give special unrestricted flow to the HOV lanes. That is, they're segregated from the lanes that are normally controlled by stoplights and have their own set of signals. Perhaps this could be done specifically for busses in the city. This would also help emergency vehicles too. Even though they have ultimate right-of-way, I'd hate to be a heart attack or accident victim in the middle of New York City around 5PM. In general, I think cities need to redesign their traffic situation that goes back to favouring mass-transit and low-impact vehicles such as bicycles instead of designing solely for cars.

Pop quiz: what's wrong with this picture?




Okay, time's up. Did you spot it? Yes, there it is. The "undercover" is, by this letter, blown. Since it was written by an official of the bus company, the letter is a public record. The driver, if he's smart and covering his @ss, is requesting and receiving all public records relevant to the investigation of him (you can bet his union rep(s) and/or attorney(s) advised this). 'Course, just knowing there may be a "narc" on board will keep him on his toes for a while. It'd be useful for the bus co. to put the undercovers on board, say, two months from now, when the driver's guard might be down.

I always assumed it was the same reason everyone else has so much "road rage" -- i.e. because they are simply do not have the mental capacity to cope with their day to day life.

I see the point, but what more can they do, realistically? If you fired every driver for a first offense, no one would be left.