Chicago Sun-Times

PUT VETERAN BUS DRIVERS ON TOUGHEST ROUTES

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The Occupation­al Safety and Health Administra­tion lists green as the color of safety. But green — when it means an untested rookie — is not the safe choice for the bus drivers who must navigate the CTA’s most challengin­g routes.

Five people were killed and more than 1,000 injured in CTA bus crashes in 2015 and 2016, according to a report by Robert Herguth in Sunday’s Sun- Times. According to the CTA, that’s a good safety record compared with similar large public transit systems. But it could be better if more experience­d drivers were assigned to routes that might be too much for newer drivers.

As it works now, veteran drivers — the ones who best know how to navigate tricky turns or anticipate erratic moves by other vehicles on city streets — can use their seniority to select quieter, lower- stress routes. That’s a way to reward years of service, but it can leave the more difficult routes to lessexperi­enced drivers who may not be as adept at avoiding accidents.

To make the buses safer, the CTA has increased the number of days of training and has instituted “long- ride” inspection­s in which managers accompany drivers to make sure drivers are adhering to the correct procedures and policies. Those are part of “multiple changes” the agency says it has implemente­d.

But it could do more. Carlos J. Acevedo, a representa­tive of the Amalgamate­d Transit Union Local 241, which represents CTA bus drivers, says his union would like to see financial incentives in a new contract now being negotiated that would encourage experience­d drivers to operate the morediffic­ult-to- drive articulate­d buses and select the more challengin­g routes. Acevedo says it also would help to cut back on split shifts that can leave drivers more tired and on unrealisti­c timetables that can stress them out.

We’d like to see the financial incentives work, or see a tougher negotiatin­g stance by CTA managers to force the change. One way or another, the most seasoned drivers should be negotiatin­g those tight and dangerous turns on crowded Loop streets and elsewhere.

Besides the deaths and injuries in 2015 and 2016, taxpayers had to cough up $ 16 million in settlement­s, judgments and other legal expenses. The CTA shouldn’t hesitate to do anything it can to improve safety.

 ??  ?? The aftermath of a crash last July 6 involving a sport- utility vehicle and a CTA bus on Pulaski Road in North Lawndale.
| NVP FILES
The aftermath of a crash last July 6 involving a sport- utility vehicle and a CTA bus on Pulaski Road in North Lawndale. | NVP FILES

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