Madison Metro will reform the way it trains and operates following the death of a pedestrian in a bus accident last summer.
The pedestrian, Maureen Grant, died last June when a bus hit her at the corner of North Lake Street and University Avenue. Today, Metro announced the changes it has made to its buses and training procedures since the incident.
Chuck Kamp, general manager of Metro, said the Technical Reconstruction Unit of the State Patrol reconstructed the accident.
The State Patrol released a report of the reconstruction that said the driver’s side mirror was a “variable obstruction,” meaning the driver needed to move to see around it.
Additionally, Kamp said an onboard video was shown at the conference. The footage ran for one minute until just before the moment of impact, which showed the driver was in compliance with the company’s safety rules.
However, according to the TRU report, driver Debra Foster’s failure to see Grant in the blind spot was a factor in the collision.
“Blind spots and other view obstructions are commonly overcome in the normal operation of motor vehicles and even more frequently in the operation of oversized vehicles such as passenger buses,” the report said. “The failure to identify Ms. Grant as a pending hazard throughout the turning maneuver is a causal factor in this collision.”
Kamp said safety changes began in 2007, when a new rule required the company’s buses to be equipped with high-mount mirrors instead of low-mount mirrors. He said most of the buses have been outfitted with the mirrors.
Kamp said the high-mount mirrors are designed to reduce the issue of a blind spot for bus drivers making left-hand turns, like the turn the driver whose bus hit Grant made in June.
“Some [employees] thought the new mirror was more problematic, but others saw an improvement,” Kamp said. “We had employee meetings for feedback and got the sense we should retrofit all the old buses to have high-mount mirrors.”
Sixty-seven new buses purchased since 2007 have come with high-mount mirrors, Kamp said, and six of the older buses have been retrofitted with the new mirrors.
He said Metro Transit plans to have the remaining buses from its fleet of 209 buses retrofitted with the high-mount mirrors by the end of the year.
Ald. Scott Resnick, District 8, said the changes to Metro Transit’s system are a step in the right direction.
“Driving on campus can be a daunting challenge with the number of students crossing intersections at any given time of day,” Resnick said.
He said he hopes Metro Transit drivers and other future drivers will learn from this incident and the changes Metro Transit plans to made.
Regarding the incident last June, Resnick said the pedestrian was not at fault in the circumstances. Therefore, he doubts there will be any major change to daily campus life based on Metro Transit’s changes.
Kamp said there has not been a decrease in ridership since the incident. Instead, he said ridership has increased 9.5 percent last year, a 40-year high for the company.
In addition to retrofitting the buses with new mirrors, Kamp said the company is also improving the focus of its new-driver and refresher training for bus drivers.
Currently, all drivers go through training that covers a number of safety issues including managing blind spots, Kamp said.
He said at the next refresher training session, Metro Transit will hold a training class for its drivers.
“New drivers go through new-driver training, and we have refresher training each year that focuses on topics that have been important, relevant and based on experience,” Kamp said.
He said the incident from last June is a main point in adjusting refresher training to what has happened.
