STM bus drivers should get breaks, coroner recommends after pedestrian death

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A Quebec coroner has recommended that Montreal bus drivers be given mandatory breaks, in an effort to improve reaction times, following a deadly March 4 collision between a city bus and a pedestrian.

Dr. Edgard Nassif blamed “human factors” for the death of the 65-year-old pedestrian, who was struck and killed by a turning Société de transport de Montréal bus at Édouard-Laurin Blvd. and Décarie Blvd., in the St-Laurent borough, shortly after 9 p.m.

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“The inaction of the driver following the initial contact with the pedestrian led him to continue for several metres without braking, despite the noise of the impact and the outside mirror folding towards his window,” Nassif wrote in his report, released this week. “If he had stopped at the first contact, the pedestrian would not have gone under the back wheels of the bus.”

Fatigue is among the factors that can lead to slower reaction times, the coroner wrote. In his report, Nassif also wrote that the driver said he didn’t stop at first because he was used to hearing loud noises while driving.

The driver told investigators he didn’t have any formal breaks during his seven-hour-and-40-minute shift and that he could only take breaks when he was ahead of schedule, something that depended on traffic, according to the report. The driver added that some of his colleagues didn’t get any breaks during their workdays, even for their physical needs.

On March 4, the driver had managed to take around 58 minutes of breaks, on three separate occasions, including an eight-minute stop around two hours before the collision, the coroner wrote.

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Nassif wrote that he wants the STM to “revise the schedules of bus drivers who don’t have rest breaks in order to include mandatory breaks with the goal of reducing factors that affect vigilance and reaction time.”

Other factors that contributed to the death included a blind spot created by the bus’s left side mirror, which may have been one of the reasons the driver didn’t see the pedestrian as he turned.

Defective street lights may have also been a factor, as well as the fact that the pedestrian — who was crossing at a pedestrian crosswalk and had the right of way — was wearing dark clothes, Nassif wrote, adding that the pedestrian was intoxicated at the time of the collision (he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.187, more than twice the legal limit to drive) and didn’t react to the approaching bus.

The coroner is also recommending that the city ensure the lights at the crosswalk are properly maintained and that Piétons Québec conduct an awareness campaign for pedestrians.

STM said it has questions “about the link between the circumstances of the event and the recommendation,” spokesperson Amélie Régis wrote in an email, adding that the transit agency won’t comment further for now.

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An investigation by the STM blamed the collision on the bus’s blind spots; the way the driver turned, which wasn’t the way he had been trained; the lack of visual contact with the pedestrian; and the fact that the driver didn’t respect the Highway Safety Code at a stop sign, according to the coroner’s report.

Nassif wrote that the STM has already taken several steps to avoid future collisions of the same nature, including corrective actions with the driver involved; plans to have awareness activities for bus drivers, as well as for pedestrians and cyclists; and plans to add a collision avoidance system to buses in the future.

Frédéric Therrien, the president of the union that represents STM bus drivers, said the problem isn’t a lack of mandatory breaks, it’s that drivers aren’t given enough time to complete their routes.

In 2010, he said, drivers would have between five to 10 minutes at the end of their route to go the washroom, a necessity after an hour of driving.

“We don’t have that anymore because the STM has compressed the schedules so much,” he said in an interview.

For example, he said driving the route of the 141 Jean-Talon bus in a car would take around 33 minutes, according to Google, while bus drivers, who have to let passengers board and disembark, have 45 minutes to drive that distance. In places where speed limits have been reduced by the city, the STM hasn’t given bus drivers more time, he added.

“Driving a heavy vehicle in Montreal is already something, driving with people in the bus, around the bus, with a specific time to get from point A to point B, it’s unimaginable,” he said.

Therrien said he also takes issue with the fact that the STM blamed the collision — which he described as a tragic accident — on the driver and didn’t take into account the fact that the pedestrian was in a dark area, wearing dark clothes and didn’t attempt to avoid the bus.

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