Tuesday, July 7, 2015

MTA report shows bus driver drove too fast, could have avoided killing pedestrian in Bronx. Transport Workers Union Local 100 slams the report


NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, July 7, 2015, 12:24 AM


An MTA report found that bus driver Theresa Gallagher could have avoided the pedestrian if she drove slower. Daniel Barry/Getty Images

An MTA report found that bus driver Theresa Gallagher could have avoided the pedestrian if she drove slower.

A slower turn at a Bronx intersection by a bus driver could have saved the life of a 64-year-old man, an MTA report of an October accident concluded.

Bus driver Theresa Gallagher could have avoided hitting John Lavery if she made a left turn at 5 mph, instead of between 11 and 15 mph, like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority instructs, according to the findings. 

Lavery was also walking in the darkness of a broken street light, which the MTA said contributed to the deadly collision.

Nonetheless, the MTA found that if Gallagher, 62, was turning slower and had her foot on the brake, “it is possible that she would have had sufficient time to visually search and detect the pedestrian,” the report said.

She was arrested under the city’s Right of Way law, which hits drivers with misdemeanor charges for avoidable crashes that severely injure or kill a pedestrian.

Transport Workers Union Local 100 President John Samuelsen said the report vindicates Gallagher, stressing that she was driving well under the city’s speed limit.

“She didn’t break any laws to have been arrested,” he said.
The bus driver was arrested under the city’s Right of Way law, which hits drivers with misdemeanor charges for avoidable crashes that severely injure or kill a pedestrian. Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News

The bus driver was arrested under the city’s Right of Way law, which hits drivers with misdemeanor charges for avoidable crashes that severely injure or kill a pedestrian.

He also slammed the MTA report for ignoring a blind spot in the bus that made it even more difficult for Gallagher to avoid Lavery.

“Between the blind spot and the darkness of the intersection I don’t think a reasonable person would think that the accident was preventable,” he said.

Transportation Alternatives, safe streets advocates, blasted the TWU for using the investigation to exonerate the driver.

“Making a turn into a crosswalk at two to three times the proper speed in a 40-foot bus during the pedestrian walk phase is precisely the type of negligent behavior the city’s Right of Way law seeks to deter.”
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