El Paso has had a thriving and nationally recognized public transit system over the past few years with its Sun Metro buses. The use of the transit continues to be popular, but that is not the trend that the community and safety critics are worried about.
What causes concern is that in the past two years, the number of motor vehicle accidents involving the large buses has increased. Some of these accidents have caused injury and even death to other drivers, passengers and pedestrians. Addressing and fixing the safety problem is important in order to keep the streets safe and to protect the reputation of the bus company.
Sources from Sun Metro report that most of the bus accidents involving their buses and drivers are not the fault of the driver. However, one could still argue that the reported 54 of 175 accidents that were the fault of the driver in 2011 is still a problem. Sun Metro representatives believe that, among other various reasons, it's the grown amount of traffic that has contributed to more accidents over the years.
For someone who is injured in a crash involving a Sun Metro bus, the buses have cameras in them that could possibly help support a personal injury lawsuit. Cameras already exist in the backs of the buses, and now more will be placed in the front. Therefore, there should be helpful video footage from each individual bus in order to get to the facts behind an accident. If someone believes that the bus was driving too fast or failed to yield, for example, the videos could maybe help support that argument in court.
Of course, the primary goal related to this matter is that safety is brought back to the streets of El Paso. Officials are considering changing traffic signals to better regulate traffic. Also, an education campaign is planned to get safety messages regarding the buses and overall traffic laws out to the public.
Source: El Paso Inc., "Bus accidents on the rise," Robert Gray, March 19, 2012
