Or “Who Said This Was A Good Job”

One of my tasks while working full time at the bus yard was to attend any collisions or mishaps that happened while buses were out on the road, and make some preliminary investigations. I thought this picture would be a good illustration as the collision was minor, but did force the bus into a snow bank. Also, there were students on the bus, but no one, driver included, was hurt, in what was an odd collision. Shortly after I took the photo, the Police arrived, cleared the scene for recovery, and the second bus took the kids home, just in case you were concerned.

This was on a quiet back road one winter’s afternoon and the driver was dropping the last few students off. He’d been motoring at just below the speed limit (GPS records this at three second intervals) and was approaching the intersection that crossed his road. Visibility was good and the driver of the bus saw the pickup truck approaching his road, from the left, at right angles. Knowing there was a Yield sign for the truck, although not for the bus, our driver did slow, but the truck kept coming. It didn’t stop, and shot out in front of the bus, with the bus front left side catching the truck, but the evasive action our driver took led him into the snowbank. The truck driver got out of his vehicle, came over to check everything was OK, got back in his truck and drove off!

That was odd, but odder still was the fact the the truck driver dropped his wallet as he got out of his truck, and that his drivers’ licence was still in it. There’s nothing like leaving evidence at the scene. Once the kids had gone and the recovery truck had hauled the bus out of the snow bank, I had to drive the mechanic’s truck back to the bus yard. I don’t know if you’ve ever driven a pickup truck with a massive snow plough blade on the front, but believe me when I say that it’s a strange sensation.

Pulling all the data together afterwards, we felt that our driver wasn’t to blame, although he could possibly have avoided the collision with a little more caution given that the approaching truck was clearly visible, even if it was supposed to yield. The Police rounded things off by saying that the truck driver was probably drunk, although by the time they caught up with him, they couldn’t prove it.

That was one of many similar incidents I had to attend, most of them thankfully minor. The investigation was never fun, though, and sometimes ended up with our driver getting into trouble. Our drivers would often leave details out of their accounts, embellish their account and sometimes outright lie about what happened, but I guess it’s natural to be defensive when you’re likely going to be blamed. Still, we never had to fire a driver, just retrain them, and guess who had to do that!