Tri-Met toll: 15 hurt in 2 days (so far)
Today a passenger was sent flying out of his wheelchair, eight feet to the front of the bus. Ouch! This after yesterday's MAX accident.
| Posted at 4:35 PM | Permalink |
|
About
This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on October 25, 2011 4:35 PM.
The previous post in this blog was New Portland garbage deal bungled before it starts.
The next post in this blog is Blazers draw top honors.
Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.
Comments (6)
Obviously the driver was distracted by crying babies.
Posted by Portland Native | October 25, 2011 7:43 PM
PN, nice shot.
Is there anything TriMet is good at?
No seriously I want to know.
Someone give me something.
Because they don't do transit very well.
Portland:
Portland continued to experience its now 30 year transit market share erosion, despite having added three new light rail lines between 2000 and 2010. Portland's transit work trip market share fell to 6.2% from 6.3% and now trails the work at home and telecommute market share of 6.5%.
Seattle:
Seattle added 29,000 new transit commuters for the fourth strongest growth in the nation. Approximately 75% of the new commuters were on the metropolitan area's bus system.
From:
http://www.newgeography.com/content/002500-major-metropolitan-commuting-trends-2000-2010
Posted by Ben | October 25, 2011 8:46 PM
I add this anecdote just as an anecdote. It is interesting that Cliff Harris gets pulled over for no seat belt, but society deems that they would be too much hassle on a bus or train so good luck on those. A great example of weighing hassle versus risk and being sensible about it.
Anyway, it was quite a few years ago where the 15 Belmont crossed the mall across from the courthouse. There was a wheelchair passenger who had boarded and was back in the area where they fold up the seats and then strap the wheel chair down.
The driver got up and started walking back to take care of the wheelchair. Maybe because he was walking, he didn't notice it right away, but the bus was not in park and it began to roll.
It was before WTF, but the other passengers were having a WTF moment, that started with, "Umm, the bus is rolling" to more and more urgent messages of concern.
The driver was maybe 8 to 10 feet away from the wheel when he caught on, but we were still going to be okay since we hadn't rolled into the intersection or anything.
He turned and hauled butt back to the controls. The problem started when he got back to the front. He understandably wanted to stop the bus right away, and so he slammed his foot down on the brake.
At this point, the guy in the wheel chair went suddenly face-first over forward since he had not been strapped in place yet. The rest of us got quite jarred but nothing serious. The guy was righted, the chair was strapped down, and we headed out.
This has been another anecdote from my life. Thank you.
Posted by Bill McDonald | October 25, 2011 9:32 PM
Somehow it is comforting that these people were actually injured in accidents rather than at the hands of thugs and gangbangers.
Posted by reader | October 25, 2011 11:14 PM
Is there anything TriMet is good at?
Wasting lots and lots of money....pretty much all i can think of.
Posted by thaddeus | October 26, 2011 2:25 PM
Both incidents were due to other vehicles actually, not Trimet operators error.
But, I guess the safety thing is not helping much either huh?
Posted by AL M | October 26, 2011 2:28 PM