Metro improves bus safety - starting with seatbelts

WASHINGTON - Metro's latest attempt to improve safety on buses involves new seats and seatbelts -- for bus operators.

New seats and seatbelts were installed on a handful of Metrobuses throughout the area.

The seats are designed to improve lines of sight and "hold" drivers in place if they have to make sudden stops or turns.

"You never fit right in the seats before," says bus operator Lance Campbell, who drives a bus out of the Four-Mile Run garage in Arlington. "With the old seats, if you hit the brake too hard, you fell out."

Drivers say the new seats, which have been installed on 10 Metrobuses, are more comfortable.

"I like my new seat because it has a headrest," operator David Boynes, who rides out of the Montgomery garage, says grinning.

Metro says the new seats and seatbelts will be installed on the transit agency's 203 newest electric hybrid buses, with the first 50 due in this fall.

As for the new seatbelts, they are bright orange and highly visible from the outside of the bus. Metro says it is an effort to make sure drivers are wearing their seatbelts.

"We have had some issue in the past," Metro spokesperson Steven Taubenkibel says. "To our knowledge, nobody has been terminated (for not wearing a seat belt), but we have had some that have come close."

Metro supervisors are supposed to check drivers and make sure they are wearing their seat belts as they come back into bus facilities.

The penalty for not wearing a seatbelt is as follows:

• First offense -- disciplinary action
• Second offense -- 3-day suspension
• Third offense -- 5-day suspension
• Fourth offense -- dismissal

Some bus operators have gotten as far as the third offense.

Bus safety has been a top priority for Metro in the wake of some high-profile crashes.

The transit agency has implemented a number of safety actions to improve bus and pedestrian safety recently including, buying a bus simulator to train drivers, installing collision-avoidance systems and putting flashing amber lights on top of 100 buses in D.C.

(Copyright 2008 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)