andrewbrian, Author at Turning Accidents

I have written extensively about the impact of tight schedules on both vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-pedestrian incidents:

The sector where this is least common in the schoolbus sector – where children are the only passenger, but also where drivers through officials care about the passenger far more than those in the other sectors.

One aspect rarely discussed is the impact of unions on this problem. The average citizen’s feelings about union is that they help workers get a “fairer shake” in both salaries and benefits. So typically, Democrats favor strong unions while Republicans do not. What is rarely noticed – and one reason I often dislike unions – is that one of a transportation union’s main goals is to “protect the bad apples.” (The same with police unions.) Union officials only soften their stance when a bus driver is at fault in a collision. Otherwise, every driver’s union “steward” helps him or her skate – often without even a verbal reprimand for drivers trying to shave time off a route get a moving violation or tip over a wheelchair – or make countless other “safety compromises”:

https://safetycompromises.com/

https://transalt.com/article/safety-compromises-part-1-introduction/

https://transalt.com/article/safety-compromises-part-2-on-board-slips-and-falls/

https://transalt.com/article/safety-compromises-part-3-wheelchair-and-passenger-securement/

https://transalt.com/article/safety-compromises-part-4-speeding/

https://transalt.com/article/safety-compromises-part-5-failing-to-kneel-the-bus-or-coach/

https://transalt.com/article/safety-compromises-part-6-failing-to-pull-to-the-curb/

https://transalt.com/article/safety-compromises-part-7-stopping-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-intersection/

https://transalt.com/article/safety-compromises-part-8-boarding-and-alighting/

https://transalt.com/article/safety-compromises-part-9-rolling-turns-and-sharp-turns/

https://transalt.com/article/safety-compromises-part-10-passenger-assistance-standards-practices-and-disincentives/

https://transalt.com/article/safety-compromises-part-11-wheelchair-and-passenger-securement/

https://transalt.com/article/safety-compromises-part-12-conclusions/

One common incident scenario resulting directly from the tight schedules transit buses almost always have (and almost every route in our largest major cities) is making rolling left turns – instead of coming to a stop (a regulatory requirement in a few states like Kentucky) or a crawl, looking around for pedestrians approaching the crosswalk the bus will soon cut across, and cutting in front of oncoming vehicles to that they don’t have to wait for a phalanx of oncoming vehicle to pass through the intersection whereby the bus does not have to wait for the traffic signal to turn amber in order to turn – at the end of their otherwise green light. Unlike the limit line problem notes in another article in this series, most rolling turns take their toll when the buses mow down pedestrians crossing in the perpendicular crosswalk.

When even the marginal evidence that police reports (or an occasional investigation) contains finds that the body ends up five or 10 feet in front of the stopped bus, the almost universal, always lying drivers testify that, “she came out of nowhere,” or “he dashed into the street” — nonsense that can be explained to a fourth grader who survived multiplication and long-division: If a bus makes a rolling turn at, say, 15 mph (the lowest speed a rolling turn would be), the driver’s reaction time would move the bus 33 feet – and then it must stop from 15 mph, which can take another 15 or 20 feet to come to a stop. So it can’t make a rolling turn and stop only five feet behind the body it struck. The truth – and the only truth is – “I saw him (or her) in the crosswalk – maybe a good 50 feet before I hit him or her. But I was going too fast to stop.” Any half-baked plaintiff’s expert (an expert in operations like myself who knows basic reconstruction, or a seasoned/certified reconstructionist who didn’t sleep through 4^th grade math, and took a driver’s ed class in high school, is going to slaughter the defendant. Frankly, there is no defense for rolling through a left turn: The answer is to come to a stop (or at least a crawl), and then take a careful look before proceeding. But that would take time, the driver could then lose a minute waiting for all the oncoming traffic to pass through, and again, the schedules are almost always too tight.

Drivers of public transportation vehicles with long wheelbases must often begin their right turns in the oncoming lanes of the roadways into which they turn, and because schedules are commonly too tight, they make “rolling left turns” much too fast.

#turningaccidents #turningwithlargevehicles #publictransitexpert #transalt

My fully intact long-term memory remembers a cliché from my driver’s ed youth: Half of all collisions occur three or fewer blocks aware from one of the motorist’s homes. This is not because the familiarity induces one motorist to pay less attention. It’s mostly because the “local” and “collector” streets most residents’ homes are on are full to turns to get to a main road. For many reasons – visibility, impatience, etc. – turns are harder. But for vehicles with long wheelbases – like buses and trucks – the turns are harder (see https://transalt.com/article/dancing-in-the-oncoming-lane-long-wheelbases-and-right-turns/ and https://transalt.com/article/the-danger-deterrent-long-wheelbases-and-left-turns/). Poor traffic engineering (common to small towns) contributes to the problem.

Right turns tend to pose different problems for large vehicles than do left turns. A large vehicle turning right cannot turn into the right lane around the corner – the bus must spend some time “dancing” in the left lane. It just can’t turn sharply enough to immediately end up in the right lane just around the corner. With left turns – with far more room to make the turn, and most buses with schedules too tight – drivers tend to make medium-speed “rolling left turns” instead of first coming to a stop (a regulation in states like Kentucky) or a crawl – often shaving a minute or two from the route’s running time instead of waiting for oncoming vehicles going straight to first pass, and then wait for a gap in oncoming traffic of an amber traffic signal.

Another problem – particularly with large vehicles making right turns – is the inexcusable (and stupid) practice of placing limit lines, at signalized intersections, too close to the intersection. With no signature, traffic engineers have no choice: Vehicles must pull up to the edge of the intersection to observe vehicle approaching from both sides. But on signalized intersections – on which most buses and trucks are usually allowed to travel, if the vehicles on side streets pull up too close to the intersection – for which there is no need, since a traffic signal controls the movement of vehicles in all directions – when the limit lines are right up against the intersecting roadway, a bus or truck not making a “square turn” (if space even allows for it) is likely to chop off the left-front corner of the vehicle awaiting the turn. An attorney and his or her expert should obviously not comment that, “Hey, this is not Norway or Japan,” lest he or she alienate the jury. But this is an important thing to know. This is America, where incompetence runs wild, and not caring about other people is the culture of half of our voters. So a savvy lawyer and his or her expert need to look for all kinds of mistakes in traffic engineering, not just errors and omissions made by bus drivers and their company’s management officials.

Many basic rules of the road for turning are well known: Let oncoming vehicles come straight through rather than turn in front of them. But while a common motorist may be in a hurry, his or her schedule is not so often too tight. And buses (more, I believe, than trucks) shave time from their route by cutting in front of oncoming vehicles.

These few errors and omissions account for, and help to explain, a lot of turning accidents. When working a turning accident, attorneys on both sides should be aware of such things and determine (ideally with a reconstructionist) what factors led to the incident.

A handful of errors and omissions account for a large number of turning incidents. An attorney is well advised to be aware of them and examine such incidents from these multiple angles.

#turningaccidents #intersectionaccidents #publictransitexpert #transalt #intersectioncollisions

Author: andrewbrian

Especially for Attorneys – Tight Schedules and Turning Accidents

Especially for Lawyers – Why so Many Turning Incidents

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