‘I DON’T DO DRUGS’
Angry bus driver denies he refused tests
An outraged city bus driver, charging he was slandered by MTA officials, insisted Saturday that he provided blood and urine samples for drug and alcohol testing after his vehicle plunged from an overpass onto the Cross Bronx Expressway in a late-night wreck.
Everton Beccan, 55, backed up his claim with paperwork from St. Barnabas Hospital indicating his urine specimen was received at 10:33 a.m on Friday — about 11 hours after the crash. He spoke just a day after was he pulled off the job without pay and publicly accused of dodging the mandatory test.
“The story that I refused to take a urine test was a blatant lie,” the 11-year Metropolitan Transportation Authority veteran said through a jaw wired shut after the crash. “I am 1 million percent not worried. I don’t do drugs. Nothing at all.”
Transit officials first leveled the claim at a Friday news conference, with Interim NYC
Transit President Sarah Feinberg describing the driver’s refusal as “extremely troubling.” But Beccan, joined by his daughter for a news conference outside his Mount Vernon, Westchester County, home, said the troubling part of the tale was the allegation against him.
“Don’t say I refused to take a drug test,” said Beccan, who learned about the charge from a co-worker. “I was very upset. To put out a statement to the public without accurate information, that’s slander on them. That doesn’t make no sense.”
Beccan was officially sidelined shortly after the Thursday night crash in which the Bronx bus with seven passengers aboard went front-end first and fell 50 feet from the overpass. The rear of the articulated bus remained perched precariously above the expressway.
According to the MTA, Beccan passed a breath test for alcohol after the University Ave. crash in Highbridge, but then declined a second test for drugs and alcohol at a local hospital. Agency paperwork indicated Beccan refused on three occasions to cooperate after an MTA drug and alcohol sample technician arrived about 3 a.m.
“This was a tragic incident for all involved and the MTA continues to provide the full facts to the public,” said MTA spokeswoman Abbey Collins. “Unfortunately, the bus operator refused his [Federal Transit Administration] and MTA-mandated drug and alcohol test multiple times. This is a straightforward, nonnegotiable, federally mandated requirement of all bus operators and other safety sensitive personnel.”
Authorities said after the wreck Beccan’s bus was traveling at too high a rate of speed to safely make the turn that led to the crash.
Beccan, released from the hospital Friday night with the broken jaw and other injuries, recounted his quick agreement to take the Breathalyzer test, recalling how the NYPD arrived at the hospital to take the sample. He said a 4 a.m. blood test was then taken, followed by the urine sample around 10 a.m. “Right away, I did it,” he said after spending a sleepless night over the test allegation. “I’m not worried about nothing. I’m clean.”
The father of two was driving his regular route when the harrowing wreck occurred, and authorities acknowledged he assisted passengers in escaping the upside-down front half of the bus.
“I had to walk out of the bus through the [missing] windshield,” said Beccan. “There was an older guy, I helped him out. And a girl whose head was cut, who was crying, I helped her, too. I’m just glad no one died. It is an accident, that’s what it is.”
Authorities said Beccan was a transit veteran with a good safety record. His bus was inspected a day before the accident, with no problems reported, officials said.
Transport Workers Union safety rep Joe DiPaola said the cause of the crash remained unclear pending review of the bus’ black box and video evidence, although the MTA said there was no mechanical cause yet identified via data retrieved from the onboard event recorder.
But Beccan said the bus “just took off” as he approached the familiar turn above the highway.
“I made that turn a million times,” said. “I already know you can’t take that turn fast. It seems like they always want to blame somebody, and the operator is the first person to blame.”