Utica police officer injured

[Ralph]

Utica police officer injured in accident with bus.

www.uticaod.com/homepage/x1670187113

Like no one ever saw this coming. Friggin' bus drivers in Utica think they own the roads here anyway.

[thelma]

You're absolutely right, Ralph. My GD has told me of many scary incidents she has seen the Utica City Bus drivers do when she is coming home on a School Bus. As of this morning, the news is stating no fault has been established yet, and no tickets issued.

It doesn't take a genius to know that the Bus took too wide of a turn and hit the Police Car and the Bus Driver is at fault.

[Swimmy]

Those buses are crazy. At the corner of bleecker and genesee, those buses just pull right out in front of you. Twice, I've almost been sideswipped because the driver didn't look before pulling out. And on a half-dozen different occaissions I've almost been forced to rear-end them because they pulled out last minute before I could slow down to a crawl while it picked up speed. Thank God there was no on coming traffic so I could swerve around it.

[bobbbiez]

Boy, I'm not surprised hearing this at all. I just wonder how many accidents there have been but never got reported.
I can't count the many near incidents I have on a regular basis with a bus pulling away from the curb suddenly. I do have my vehicle under control at all times, especially in the city, but these bus drivers don't care if you are right beside them and they'll pull out anyways. Sorry to say but they do all have the attitude, "I'm bigger then you, so oh well."

My prayers are for the Officer's speedy, and complete recovery.

Maybe now, no matter what caused the accident, the bus drivers will now be forced to drive safer for all involved.

[Disgusted-Daily]

Maybe more training or different requirements for driving bus need to be implemented. Seems like a school bus driver takes more training than a city bus.

I once knew a lady that drove Utica City bus. She could not back her car out of the driveway to save her life. I used to laugh with my wife on how could she drives bus.

[Ralph]

This just happened around the corner form my house. I went by there this morning and they had the lines from the investigation painted in the road indicating the position of the front, back, wheels, etc.

It doesn't look like the bus made a wide turn, it just plain looks like he turned directly into the opposite lane when he went around the corner.

If you look at the picture, the bus hit the police car drivers side-to-drivers side with enough force to spin the PD car all the way around so it was up against the entrance side to the bus!



If you look at the buses front bumper it is actually over the damn curb on the wrong side of the road!!

[wcup102]

I talked with a UPD officer today and she said they both are doing fine and were treated and released. The bus driver thought she was hitting the brake and hit the gas by mistake. She should not be driving and I wonder what the mandatory urine test will show that is required in all commercial vehicle accidents? I'm pretty sure it includes buses as well.

[Ralph]

Thats good to hear Wcup, thank you.

I know they took the bus driver up to St. E's for drug testing as they mentioned it on the scanner last night at the scene. It's also Centro policy whenever one of their drivers is involved in an MVA.

I'll agree with your comment on her not driving. They only have two LARGE pedals to worry about, and they are a good distance apart in those buses. I've been driving for 34 years and never mistook the gas for the brake, in either a standard or automatic.

But still, I went back and looked at it again. Even with that mistake it has to be one of the widest turns I have ever seen. And I have seen tractor trailers make that same corner without going that wide.

The results will be interesting indeed.

[thelma]

My son has a CDL license and the alcohol and drug percentages are much LOWER than what our Driver's License are. If I'm not mistaken, the alcohol percentage that is OK to be in your system is LESS than 5%. As far as drugs are concerned, I would imagine there should be none at all!

This is the way it should be for anyone driving a Commercial vehicle - they usually are large and dangerous motor vehicles capable of killing a lot of people if used by someone intoxicated.

[froggy]

Yes thelma, the BAC limits for CDL drivers is much lower than regular licenses. And it doesn't matter what they are driving, it applies all the time, whether they are driving their personal vehicle or a big rig. I guy I used to know years back drove a gas tanker and he told that for that specific reason when he and his wife would go out she would be the DD because of the lower limits. They take it pretty serious.

I don't know about anyone else, as I have yet to see it come up, but the police statement on this accident is that the bus made too wide of a turn from one article I read. As if anyone in the police station has ever driven a bus to know how wide a turn they must make to clear the curb. My educated guess, based on how long the wheel base is on a bus, is that the driver made the wide enough turn appropriate for the bus to clear the corner. Another article, the one linked in this thread states the bus made a left turn, which if it wasn't wide enough might have hit the police car, which brings me to my next conflict.

Also, I don't see it brought up the conflicting story presented by the police statement. The article states that the car was stopped at the intersect, but yet they were responding to assist another police officer at a traffic stop on Oneida St. Well, were they stopped or were they going to assist someone? Again, my educated guess is they drove into the intersect, colliding with the bus, who had the right of way. When I went to UFA I think there used to be a traffic light on that corner, but now it might be a four way stop. Either way though, looking west on Hobart there is an open field or parking lot on that corner where the bus would have been approching, and the police car would have seen it coming clearly. Oneida St. is heading straight through that interesection heading west onto Hobart, so I really think they hit the bus not the other way around.

[Ralph]

The light is still there Froggy. I know there were many conflicting statements from everyone, paper, TV, etc.

But I have been down there and seen it. The bus, when it stopped, was completely on the wrong side of the road approx 30 ft. up Hobart Street from the corner. There were no visible skid marks from the bus to be seen either. Look at the picture again.
Yes, if the PD car was traveling they would have seen the bus coming, but based on what I saw it is more likely they were stopped.
I have sat on the same corner many times and had the bus turn by me without any problems, and at that time of night the intersection is not very busy.

[froggy]

Then if it was up on the wrong side of the street and it was turning left, it took the turn too tight, not too wide.

[Ralph]

LOL!!! See, that's the problem, no one ever explained it correctly that I could see.

The bus was going north on Kemble St. and made a right turn to go east on Hobart.
The Police car was sitting at the light facing west on Hobart.

I had a problem with them changing the city bus route here to go around Loretto for just this purpose. It used to go straight on Elm St, but when Loretto opened they cried about their employees having to walk through the parking lot from the bus stop.

When UFA was still going they had widened Kemble St from right after Grove (where I live) all the way to Hobart so the school buses could make that turn without jumping the curb.

Like I said, I see it everyday, and the buses have no problem making the turn from Grove onto Kemble, which is a much tighter turn than the one from Kemble onto Hobart.

Regardless if the car was moving or not, the bus was way out of its lane.

[froggy]

ralph said:

LOL!!! See, that's the problem, no one ever explained it correctly that I could see.

The bus was going north on Kemble St. and made a right turn to go east on Hobart.
The Police car was sitting at the light facing west on Hobart.

Yeah then the news got it all backwards,where the bus was coming from. Right turns have to be wide to clear the curb, and if she panicked trying to hit the brake and didn't see the car whenm making the turn, that makes sense. This would also explain why after reading the news and seeing the pic something didn't make sense to me. Your explanation ralph clears that up and now the pic makes sense to what you describe, turning right not left.

And I swear I was never one of those kids bothering any of the neighbors around UFA.

[Ralph]

Glad my explanation cleared that up for you.

Pffftttt........I've lived here my whole life and don't remember anyone ever bothering us! Even when I went to school there.