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ChineseDisgraces to the profession
[tags]los angeles, mta, santa monica, big blue bus, bicycle, laist[/tags]
Bus drivers, rightly or wrongly, receive scorn from the public at large for perceived and actual misdeeds. Two incidents this week cast the job in the worst light possible.
In South Los Angeles, Stephen Mark Picart turned himself in to police on Monday for being suspected of killing his girlfriend in front of her children after an argument, reports the Los Angeles Times (with video from KTLA-Channel 5). The victim, 31-year-old Sharon Carter, was the mother of two boys and, according to her relatives, pregnant with a third child. Carter was a driver with Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus. Picart drove school buses for First Student.
Meanwhile, LAist is attracting heavy comment and recommendation for publishing the account of a cyclist who had an altercation with a Metro driver in Hollywood. He called the police, only to be arrested. Box, who wrote the article in the third person, said the driver hit him with her bus, and a Metro supervisor said operators are supposed to honk at “road hazards”. On another LAist cycling controversy earlier this month, an SUV-bike altercation led to the citation of the cyclist in Beverly Hills (also written by Box), and leading to LAist being served with a warrant.
Discussion
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as a part time cyclist, full time metro rider, i find this to be just an all around shit situation. for the most part i have complete respect for bus drivers but it sux to know there are ones like this out there. unfortunately LA is inherently an anti-cyclist/metro town and its hard to find a clear cut solution.
seeing as buses are pretty much as wide as the lane and since traffic is always in abundance i can see how it’d be frustrating for a bus driver and the passengers to have to sit behind a bike and not be able to weave safely around him/her on the inner lane. but again, when i bike their are few things worse than being stuck between a car on the right and a big ol bus on your left. just a crap situation all around. but could remedied by informing the public and metro drivers more about cyclist’s rights and more importantly creating BIKE LANES!
for the most part, when i’m starting off at a light next to a bus i always let it go before i even start peddling, but then again i’m pro metro before anything.
I can see the frustration here; we’re talking about two modes of car-free transportation here duking it out with each other. I take the bus, trains, ride a bike, and drive (but less nowadays). I can understand the bus driver’s frustration being behind a slow bike rider; if you can understand their situation, they’re pretty much stressed from having to dodge everything on the streets, from rude drivers cutting in front, to getting people in the bus and making sure they’ve all paid, all the while, trying to keep on schedule, so that customers (bus drivers) don’t lose trust in the Metro system. Then there are the bike riders, they’ve chosen to also go car-free, and in a more environmental and healthy way. The law does say the bike riders are to be treated as any other vehicles. For me, I find myself taking on the sidewalks and only the road when safe, because of the rude (private automobile) drivers. I haven’t had any problems with bus operators when I’m riding, as I always let them pass. What makes the Hollywood situation bad is that it’s a pretty small street, it’s four lanes with little wiggle room, either there is no center turn lane or when there is, there is no extra space to squeeze a bicyclist with two cars. Reading the LAist blog, I have to say the bus operator is at fault, if the left lane is clear, then she should have used it to pass the cyclists. However, not hearing the whole story, there could have been an obstacle on the left lane that prevents the bus from using it to pass. This is indeed a sad story. I’m pro transit and bicycling. In a perfect world, Hollywood Boulevard would have bike and bus lanes, completely separated, no private automobiles (emergency and service vehicles exempt); but alas, our world revolves around private cars, and both bus operators and bicyclists have to fight through them just to get through.
Not specifically regarding these stories:
In general, if a cyclist is involved in an accident with a car, most people like blaming the cyclist.
Similarly, if a bus or train is involved in an accident with a car, most people blame the bus/train.
I know that buses and trains (and bikes) create some safety problems. But don’t you think that by having fewer cars on the streets make things safer overall?
I feel that the safety issues brought against public transit are pretty weak. But whenever the gold line or blue line is in an accident, everyone jumps to the conclusion that these trains aren’t safe.
(By contrast, imagine if the newspapers reported every automobile accident….)