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CTA Accidents


garmon757

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A fiery accident involving a van crashing to CTA bus #1520 around 12:45 AM @ 93rd/Commercial leaving 1 dead (driver) and 3 injured including the bus driver (listed in fair-serious condition).

Sources:

http://voices.suntimes.com/news/breaking-news/four-injured-in-cta-bus-crash-in-calumet-heights/#.U1e10Cm9LCR

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local/chicago_news&id=9513388

http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/1723/article/p2p-79989223/

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Geez, two major accidents on the south side. The other was a car that rammed a group of pedestrians waiting for a bus at 103rd/Michigan. That driver tried to run but was caught by CPD!

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Geez, two major accidents on the south side. The other was a car that rammed a group of pedestrians waiting for a bus at 103rd/Michigan. That driver tried to run but was caught by CPD!

Yeah I heard about that in which that's just really f'd up.... Some people just have no regards for other people lives....
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Sort of brings up what this does to the debate on the CTA Tattler on whether taking transit is statistically safer, when this is about the third accident of this type in about a week.

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Sort of brings up what this does to the debate on the CTA Tattler on whether taking transit is statistically safer, when this is about the third accident of this type in about a week.

Well to be fair to CTA, most of the recent accidents involving buses have been due to the other drivers and not the bus operators for the buses involved. So the only concerns I have when using the bus are the actions of drivers from other vehicles like car and taxi drivers changing lanes in front of the bus without signaling or turning in front of the bus as if the bus is supposed to be able to stop on a dime like a car for example. Though in this case, the other vehicle drifted from the opposite side of the street into the bus's path.

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Well to be fair to CTA, most of the recent accidents involving buses have been due to the other drivers and not the bus operators for the buses involved. So the only concerns I have when using the bus are the actions of drivers from other vehicles like car and taxi drivers changing lanes in front of the bus without signaling or turning in front of the bus as if the bus is supposed to be able to stop on a dime like a car for example. Though in this case, the other vehicle drifted from the opposite side of the street into the bus's path.

A very good point. I have personally been on a light rail system where accidents on the street are mostly the fault of other motorists getting into the right of way of the light rail vehicle. In addition, I believe Houston's light rail system has been on those "Caught on Tape" style shows for the same reason.

Another argument would be that light rail vehicles obviously cannot change lanes, making them irrelevant in this bus conversation. However, with Chicago traffic and the size of a bus, I'm not sure how feasible changing lanes to avoid an accident would be for bus, and with the short time span, the idea of changing lanes would have to be executed quickly, or would simply be forgotten.

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A very good point. I have personally been on a light rail system where accidents on the street are mostly the fault of other motorists getting into the right of way of the light rail vehicle. In addition, I believe Houston's light rail system has been on those "Caught on Tape" style shows for the same reason.

....

Undoubtedly the explanation for the result of a study in Car and Driver that light rail has about 20 times the death rate of a passenger vehicle.

This makes me wonder about potential carnage if the Ashland BRT is ever built. It probably doesn't have the mass that an LRV does, but I still see a lot of potential passengers getting run over trying to get to the center island.

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Undoubtedly the explanation for the result of a study in Car and Driver that light rail has about 20 times the death rate of a passenger vehicle.

This makes me wonder about potential carnage if the Ashland BRT is ever built. It probably doesn't have the mass that an LRV does, but I still see a lot of potential passengers getting run over trying to get to the center island.

Car&Driver are being misleading[1]. The interesting statistic is fatalities per passenger mile, not per vehicle mile. But per vehicle mile makes cars look good, so that's what they use. And, of course, they don't bother to say that's what they're using, you have to go look at their source, which they don't properly cite. And, really, if you talking about light rail, you should look at urban auto fatality rates, which even for vehicle mile are much worse.

[1] I'm being polite. They're liars.

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Car&Driver are being misleading[1]. The interesting statistic is fatalities per passenger mile, not per vehicle mile. But per vehicle mile makes cars look good, so that's what they use. And, of course, they don't bother to say that's what they're using, you have to go look at their source, which they don't properly cite. And, really, if you talking about light rail, you should look at urban auto fatality rates, which even for vehicle mile are much worse.

[1] I'm being polite. They're liars.

I believe that almost all of the light rail deaths are those of dimbulb pedestrians & idiot car drivers who drive around lowered crossing gates or ignore warning lights & bells.

They aren't passengers on the trains.

There have been numerous deaths of these groups on the Los Angeles Blue Line, which runs from Downtown LA to Long Beach. There are several crossings that everyone in the traffic engineering business, say are of really poor design which contributes to the crashes & deaths.

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Car&Driver are being misleading[1]. The interesting statistic is fatalities per passenger mile, not per vehicle mile. But per vehicle mile makes cars look good, so that's what they use. And, of course, they don't bother to say that's what they're using, you have to go look at their source, which they don't properly cite. And, really, if you talking about light rail, you should look at urban auto fatality rates, which even for vehicle mile are much worse.

[1] I'm being polite. They're liars.

They are certainly less liars than CTA with any of its statistics.

Vehicle miles would make cars look less good, because the average passenger vehicle can't hold more than 7 passengers. 100 people could be hurt on a bus.

Maybe you are Brian Steele and think that the relevant metric for anything is unlinked trips. That's the real lie.

Strictures is probably correct that the statistic on LRV is that they have few vehicle miles and run over a lot of pedestrians. If it were passenger miles, the number would be a lot less, but I'm sure that the number of pedestrians killed would be constant. Maybe that's where you are going.

And, apparently the citation to the government source was adequate, since you found it.

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They are certainly less liars than CTA with any of its statistics.

Vehicle miles would make cars look less good, because the average passenger vehicle can't hold more than 7 passengers. 100 people could be hurt on a bus.

Car and Driver have a long, long, long history of lying about anything that might make someone think a passenger car isn't the best thing on the planet.

If they say the sky is blue, you'd do well to check that's still true.

Passenger miles are the interesting statistic for the reason you mention. A safe mile by a car is only a safe mile for a couple people. A safe mile for a bus is a safe mile for 30 or so on average. Any one who quotes a metric other than passenger miles (or, more usually, fatalities per 100 million passenger miles) has an agenda aimed at making something look better or worse than it actually is.

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Car and Driver have a long, long, long history of lying about anything that might make someone think a passenger car isn't the best thing on the planet.

If they say the sky is blue, you'd do well to check that's still true.

Passenger miles are the interesting statistic for the reason you mention. A safe mile by a car is only a safe mile for a couple people. A safe mile for a bus is a safe mile for 30 or so on average. Any one who quotes a metric other than passenger miles (or, more usually, fatalities per 100 million passenger miles) has an agenda aimed at making something look better or worse than it actually is.

The only thing Car and Driver actually said about LRVs and passenger miles was when Pat Beddard was still with them, and the point essentially was that for the capital cost per passenger mile, you could give all LRT riders BMWs.

Eddie Alterman's current agenda is only that cars are safer than they were, and quit the 30 year dumping on Ralph Nader.

BTW, if you want to discuss something about capital funds being used tor a clean venture, look at my post under New Pace Paratransit Vehicles and explain that.

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  • 4 weeks later...

This is one of the most heart-wrenching accidents anybody could ever imagine. A one-year old girl has been killed by getting hit by a bus (4314) (6) on 77th and South Shore. We all have to be careful and mindful while outside, especially us who have children because this is very unacceptable and saddening. However, the bus driver did the best he can to swerve out the way but the baby girl was pinned on the side and died at the scene.

http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/1723/article/p2p-80317176/

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This is one of the most heart-wrenching accidents anybody could ever imagine. A one-year old girl has been killed by getting hit by a bus (4314) (6) on 77th and South Shore. We all have to be careful and mindful while outside, especially us who have children because this is very unacceptable and saddening. However, the bus driver did the best he can to swerve out the way but the baby girl was pinned on the side and died at the scene.

http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/1723/article/p2p-80317176/

Good Lord! R.I.P. to the little girl. My condolences go out to her family. What a tragedy. :(

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