Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Public Perception: Incongruent Attitudes Toward VTA Drivers
In a letter to the Mercury News Jennifer Novak of San Jose complains about a VTA bus driver proceeding through an intersection where she had stopped for an approaching ambulance. She poses her letter as a question about traffic law, but what is apparent from her letter is her desire to elicit a response from the Mercury condemning VTA drivers:
Q I know you're supposed to stop and move out of the way of emergency vehicles, but it seems I could use a finer understanding. Could you shed your wisdom on the following situation?I was stopped on Alum Rock Avenue at King Road. The light turned green, but I thought I heard a siren... Believing that I'm required by law to wait, I stopped at the green light. To my dismay, cars in the lane next to me did not stop, including a VTA bus...
Were the other drivers, especially the VTA driver, justified in continuing through the green light in front of an oncoming ambulance?
As was pointed out in the Mercury's response, it is very possible that the VTA driver was unaware of the approaching ambulance. Jennifer, though, was itching for a good VTA driver bashing. In her letter she seems willing to excuse the drivers of other vehicles, but expects VTA drivers to be infinitely and always aware of everything around them. While I agree that bus drivers must be more aware of their surroundings than other drivers, I would probably disagree with Jennifer as to why.
I think bus drivers need greater awareness because there are so many bad drivers on the road who do not even see buses. Evidence of this is abundant in the accident reports of bus drivers who report the other driver stating that they did not see the bus before colliding with it.
Jennifer seems to see bus drivers as bad drivers who must be held to higher standards than everyone else. They are held to higher standards, as evidenced by the greater requirements for licenses to drive buses and the stricter limitations for blood alcohol content.
They are not, however, bad drivers. They could not qualify for a class B commercial license were that the case. Jennifer, and many like her, simply dislike VTA drivers and will latch on to anything as an opportunity to bash them, while excusing the very same behavior in others.
