I’m a bus operator. My bus weighs about 25,000 pounds. It usually travels at speeds of 40-45 mph on average. In training I was told to always maintain a safe following distance of 4 seconds behind the car in front of me.
In the event you have a loaded bus with passengers aboard and a car enters your cushion of space (cutting me off) and there is something like a 1 or 2 second gap, I’m told that instead of hard steering to avoid the car, I am to strike it head on, while braking. If this happens at 45 the best the car can hope for is 35-40 mph. If its on the freeway, where I go 65…it gets worse. The bus company plays the numbers game. Maybe rightfully so. If there are 10 people on my bus it is better to kill or maime the driver of the errant car than put them all at risk if the bus were to roll or tip during a crash due to me trying to avoid the car.
Is this policy moral?
Is it the best course of action from a literal, non-moral, damage/death prevention standpoint?
I’d think they’re also trying to keep phantom riders (e.g.: “passengers” trying to claim they were injured in the crash when they haven’t stepped foot on a bus in 20 years) to a minimum.
Firstly, being rear ended by a bus when you’re both going at speed is likely to be less lethal than being in a bus that rolls over, bursts into flames, crashes through a guardrail into the quagmire below, etc.
Secondly, if a person in a car cuts a bus off, they are partially culpable for any accident that occurs - the people on the bus are not - they are innocent passengers - they’re welfare needs to be put over that of the person who has caused the accident.
IMHO (can you tell I ride the bus to work everyday?) FWIW - I love it when the bus driver leans on the horn and yells out the window at the idiot drivers in this town. It gives me a small thrill. I know, I need to get out more.
Completely moral, irrespective of the exact actions of the car driver. You’re not passive in this scenario - you’re actively taking steps to slow the bus while protecting the large number of people on board.
Many years ago, I drove a school bus. One afternoon, I’d dropped off my 7th graders (a full load) and was heading to the high school for my next pick up. The bus was empty, except for myself. I was on the expressway, in afternoon traffic, and it was raining slightly. I dropped back on the gas to allow enough space in between myself and the car in front of me, and a white van slipped into the space, so I dropped back some more. Before I could drop back the required distance, traffic STOPPED, and there was no way I was going to be able to stop in time. To the left of me was traffic, and to the right of me was the shoulder, and an embankment that went down about 150 feet to a stream. I slammed on the brakes, steered right, clipped the back corner of the van and took the rest of the way down the embankment. The bus managed to stop halfway down, headed sideways. I was The Scariest Time Of My Life. The bus didn’t tip on it’s side, but it was at such an angle that I had to exit out the rear door.
The bus I was driving was a snub nose (engine next to the driver and not on the front of the bus), similar to a commerical or city bus, and I shudder to think what would have happened to me (sitting almost against the windshield with nothing but a steering wheel and a slight dash between us) if I’d hit that van head on. As it was, I walked away from that accident, and aside from a slight bit of whiplash I had the next day, there weren’t any injuries. Would this have been different if I’d had a full load of students? Maybe the bus would have rolled afterall–I don’t know. But, I cannot imagine having taken that hit dead on.
Interesting story. I think to some extent, if you have a full load, they are expecting me to take one for the team. Luckily, I still have about 2 and a half feet of nose in front of my bus between me and the bumper.
Just as an FYI, they have the same policy about animals. If one steps in front of you, and there is no time, brake and hit it. I really like animals, so this does not make me smile, but I can see their point.
There was an incident in the Indianapolis area within the last year where a school bus driver’s maneuvers to miss an animal in the road resulted in the death of a boy. Granted, the kid had his head stuck out the window, but a great hue and cry was raised over the fact that the driver was going around an animal in the road. (The kid had his head stuck out the window to see what was going on, and his head got squished by a tree. :eek: ) Two morals to this story: hit the damned raccoon, and don’t stick your head out the bus window!!
My mom used to tell me that if I lost my arm by hanging it out of the bus window it was my own dumb fault. I’m not sure she really “knew a boy it happened to”, though.
But yeah, I think it’s better on the whole to hit the one car from behind than tip a whole bus full of innocent passengers. The car is probably a lot better equipped to be hit square on from behind (rear crumple zones, etc) than the bus is equipped to run down an embankment or over on its side. I suspect in a real accident the instinct to swerve might be amazingly powerful, though.
I think all accidents are more survivable going straight than introducing a spin. There is never anything protecting the sides of people in vehicles, and the merest spin will guarantee both divers lose control.