That makes $140,700.49 this month to settle claims, or $222,380.95 since February. And it looks like a payoff as large as $100,000 might be coming down the line. We can only get details on two of the cases up for discussion at the MTA's April 17 meeting -- one relates to a lady who in 2005 lost her balance when her bus came to an abrupt stop. She claimed to suffer contusions, post traumatic anxiety, depression, nervousness, loss of sleep and appetite, and loss of earning capacity -- must've been one hell of a tumble. She'll get $7,500.
More controversial is a case in which a blind, partially-deaf subway rider stepped off the platform, thinking he was in front of the doors, and discovered that he'd fallen between two trains. The whole thing's a huge mess for a variety of reasons, and not just because he suffered a broken leg and nerve damage: the Plaintiff claims that he was denied paratransit because they wanted him to regularly re-apply (in case, y'know, his blindness just got better all of a sudden). Also, his lawyers say, the accident could have been prevented by putting up barriers to prevent folks from falling between trains.
Muni doesn't actually have to put up barriers; since the stations were built so long ago, they're exempt from that particular ADA requirement. One anonymous source claims that Muni tried to install barriers (remember those soft-hit posts that showed up in Van Ness for a while?) but they didn't meet state standards for some reason, and had to come down.
Plaintiff's asking for $100,000. If we were Muni, figuring out some kind of barrier that could stay up would be a relatively high priority.
Disclosure: the plaintiff in the 2005 case was represented by a friend of ours, but we didn't know that until we started researching this post, and we haven't discussed it with him.
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I'm not surprised someone fell down - this is easily one of the most common accident/ "almost accident" incidents I see on buses.
Many people will start to move towards an exit while the bus is going full speed, and inevitably when they slam on the brakes to make the stop, people stumble. This is esp. true on the electric buses that have to climb hills (think 1-California) that gun up the engine coming up Sacramento, then SLAM hard on the brakes at Sacto and Sproule, etc., or buses that are going down a hill and have to slam hard to stop at the bus stop.
The big thing I wish I could tell these anxious folks is that They're Gonna Get Off The Bus OK. Shoving and scampering around the bus, esp. a crowded one, before it stops does not ensure one gets off the bus faster. I once saw a guy lose all his groceries because of this kind of situation!
This is why they have the announcement saying, clearly, "Please hold on!" as the bus starts up. It's best to follow this advice.
They did, of course, have this announcement on all buses in 2005. I wonder if this was mentioned in the trial or settlement meetings?
I always wondered what the hell those things were at Van Ness Station way back when. I just thought they were a strange irritant.
That the platforms in the metro are so long is awfully confusing, are they ever full?
At least they finally put up signs that said "Boarding Area". To this day I'm never sure where the train will stop.
Bart at least has the black rumble pads for blind peds.
Mark, the black pads sure don't appear to me to be a different texture than the yellow warning pads that line the BART tracks.