Buses in 1,649 incidents so far this year Six Metrobuses typically are involved in crashes every single day, and the numbers have gotten worse this year.
Metrobus drivers also could have done more to prevent a greater share of the crashes, according to Metro figures.
| Metrobus crashes | ||
| 2011*: 206.1 crashes/month | ||
| 2010: 196 crashes/month | ||
| 2009: 173.8 crashes/month | ||
| 2008: 194.2 crashes/month | ||
| * January through August | ||
| Source: Metro | ||
In the first eight months of this year, Metrobuses have been involved in 1,649 crashes. That’s an average of 6.8 crashes a day, up from the 6.3 per day average of the previous three years.
Bus operators could have prevented 41 percent of the accidents, or about 2.8 per day, up from a 36 percent average in the past three years.
“We do everything we can to keep the number down and we’re doing as much training as we can,” said Jack Requa, Metro’s assistant general manager for bus operations. “But the most congested city, or one of the top three in the country, provides a challenge every day.”
Metro holds its drivers to a higher standard than police or insurers. The agency may consider a crash preventable even if another vehicle runs a red light before slamming into the bus because Metrobus operators are professional drivers trained to drive defensively.
Yet the position of Metrobus operator is an entry-level position for many Metro workers, who then go on to jobs as train operators and station managers. About 28 percent of the agency’s 2,400 bus drivers have been behind the wheel for less than five years, said Metro spokesman Dan Stessel.
Even so, Metro says part of the increase in crashes this year — an average 14 additional bump-ups per month compared with the three-year average — isn’t because the drivers have gotten worse. Instead, Stessel said, Metro is doing a better job tracking the crashes with a new database added in the middle of last year.
It is also watching the drivers with new cameras, catching them in crashes that went unreported in the past or providing evidence the driver wasn’t doing everything possible to avoid the crash. In November, Metro finished installing the cameras in every bus. They constantly film the drivers yet preserve the recordings only when the vehicle makes an unusual move, such as braking too hard, accelerating too quickly or hitting something.
Typically, about 3 percent of the crashes cause injuries, such as the one that occurred Tuesday when a backhoe hit a Metrobus on North Capitol Street. In that case, the construction worker was given a traffic citation, according to Metro.
Most crashes are far less significant, entailing a bus running into a sign or hitting other buses’ mirrors when pulling out of the bus garage, Stessel said.
” ‘Crashes’ is too strong a word,” he said. “Most of these have no impact on insurance, no impact on service and no impact other than serving as counseling for the operators.”
Still, any crash means hassles. The bus must stop and unload its passengers. The agency keeps about 20 backup buses on duty during the daily rush periods to pick up those riders, Requa said. Then the drivers need to get tested for drug and alcohol use. Metro supervisors have to investigate and work with police. Injured drivers may need workers’ compensation, while non-Metro drivers may sue. And the maintenance shop has to repair the dinged up buses.
