Metro typically deals with well over 2,000 bus crashes every year, but some of its drivers go years without an accident. The transit agency has 41 drivers out of about 2,400 in its Million Mile Club, meaning they have driven a million or more miles without causing a crash.
That’s the equivalent of about two round trips to the moon.
The transit agency tries to encourage such safe driving with incentives, such as pins, coats or small cash bonuses to recognize top drivers.
Those drivers also can compete in annual “roadeos” in which they show off their skills at stopping, turning at intersections and avoiding obstacles. The winners get to compete with the best drivers from transit agencies around the country and Canada, with this year’s top drivers traveling to Long Beach, Calif., to compete.
“You can’t be in the roadeo without having a clean record,” Assistant General Manager of Bus Services Jack Requa said. “We only want the safest, best operators competing.”
In the future, the transit agency would like local jurisdictions to help make it easier to get those clean records by clearing the way for buses. It is trying to get bus-only lanes or priority routes cleared of other vehicles during rush hour each day.
“We’d love to see bus lanes, say down K Street or I Street,” Requa said.
That would not only make the buses move faster but also make them safer by taking other vehicles out of the way, he said. “If the number of vehicles is fewer, the opportunities for an accident are less,” he added. – Kytja Weir
