Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Blame the auto driver
Los Angeles builds an exclusive busway that frequently crosses existing streets. The giant buses that use the busway cost twice as much as regular buses. The big problem is that those buses frequently hit cars when crossing those streets.
What's the response? Blame the auto drivers. "Los Angeles drivers are stupid," says a bus driver. Hey -- the cars were doing just fine until your clunky buses got in their way.
The same thng, of course, happened with light rail in Houston. Los Angeles's busway is fast becoming known as the bus version of Houston's wham-bam tram, which has now been involved in 126 accidents in just over two years, including three in the first four days of 2006. Of course, the transit agency blames most of them on the auto drivers.
What's the response? Blame the auto drivers. "Los Angeles drivers are stupid," says a bus driver. Hey -- the cars were doing just fine until your clunky buses got in their way.
The same thng, of course, happened with light rail in Houston. Los Angeles's busway is fast becoming known as the bus version of Houston's wham-bam tram, which has now been involved in 126 accidents in just over two years, including three in the first four days of 2006. Of course, the transit agency blames most of them on the auto drivers.
Comments:
From the article:
>>>>"Every single one of these accidents, it was the driver running the red light, not the bus," Los Angeles County Sheriff's Lt. John Baylis said <<<<<
There you go. I believe the Sherriff's comment regarding the accidents. After all, he's not against motorcars one way or another and the investigations later prove this to be factual.
>>>>"Every single one of these accidents, it was the driver running the red light, not the bus," Los Angeles County Sheriff's Lt. John Baylis said <<<<<
There you go. I believe the Sherriff's comment regarding the accidents. After all, he's not against motorcars one way or another and the investigations later prove this to be factual.
And when your local zoo starts letting lions roam the streets and they eat little children, the sheriff will say, "Every single one of those children was told to watch out for lions. It was their fault, not the fault of the zoo for letting lions run loose."
If you don't get this analogy, think of it this way. Most private right-of-way disputes, as when a road crosses a rail line or two rail lines cross, are settled on a "first-in-time, first-in-right" basis. In other words, the railroad or road that got their first has the right of way. If we take a street that has been dedicated to autos and suddenly inject 50,000-pound buses or 100,000- to 300,000-pound trains, individual accidents might be attributed to auto driver error, but the accidents would never have happened if the heavy and unwieldy buses or trains had not been there.
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If you don't get this analogy, think of it this way. Most private right-of-way disputes, as when a road crosses a rail line or two rail lines cross, are settled on a "first-in-time, first-in-right" basis. In other words, the railroad or road that got their first has the right of way. If we take a street that has been dedicated to autos and suddenly inject 50,000-pound buses or 100,000- to 300,000-pound trains, individual accidents might be attributed to auto driver error, but the accidents would never have happened if the heavy and unwieldy buses or trains had not been there.
