Video tape of San Franciso Muni operator texting while driving a bus. Photo Credit: KTVU

When the bus operator discovered she was being taped, passenger Shawn Higgins claims, the driver got irate, kicked him off the bus, and used profanity to warn him she would never pick him up again.

The bus driver initially received just a three-day suspension, but with video tape now being shown as evidence of the illegal act of texting while driving, the Muni operator  could now lose her job.

The video footage, which the passenger gave to KTVU and which appears to show the driver texting while driving, the agency could increase its punishment, Rose said. Using the phone while driving is not only illegal, but violates agency regulations and is punishable by termination.

“Based on our original information, which we received from the operator, we were under the impression that she was not driving at the time of this incident,” said Rose. “With these new findings, we’re recommending more appropriate discipline, which could include termination.” Thursday the driver was placed on non-driving status, he said.

sfexaminer.com further reports:

Walter Scott, secretary-treasurer for the Transport Workers Union Local 250-A, which represents Muni’s 2,200 transit operators, said the operator has already paid for her infraction. “I don’t see what there’s left to discuss,” Scott said. “She’s done her time, and I’m sure she won’t do this again.”

The driver, whom Muni has not identified, is not the first operator caught using a phone while driving. In June 2008, Bradley Bradley was using his cellphone right before crashing his T-Third train into a parked N-Judah train, injuring 16 people. Bradley’s vehicle was travelling more than five times the posted limit of 3 mph. That accident caused more than $1.2 million in damages, and Muni paid more than $130,000 in injury claims. Muni subsequently fired Bradley, Rose said.

The California Public Utilities Commission recently issued a report criticizing Muni’s operators and highlighting a series of violations including instances of drivers sleeping on the train and stepping off vehicles to grab snacks.

Since January 1, 2009, it has been illegal for California drivers to operate a vehicle while texting. Those breaking the law face fines exceeding $100 for the first offense.

A 2009 study by Virginia Tech found that commercial truck drivers were 23 times more likely to get into accidents when they were texting while driving.

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On Monday afternoon 50 year old Juan Ardina of Gonzales, CA was driving a 2000 KW semi tanker south on Highway 101 through Santa Clara County, CA. The 18 wheeler truck was carrying a load of approximately 43,000 pounds of liquid molten wax in its tanker section.

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The truck accident occurred shortly after 2:30 p.m. Monday afternoon as the semi trailer truck moved near the city of Morgan Hill, south of San Jose, CA. As the semi driver took a curve on the highway between the exits for Cochrane Road and Bailey Avenue, just south of Coyote Creek Golf Drive the tanker truck apparently went off balance.

The out of control semi truck skidded on the highway, cutting deep gorges into the surface of the road. The semi truck tipped and then rolled over onto its side, crashing onto the highway. The flipped tanker trailer ended up sprawled across Highway 101 blocking two of the four traffic lanes. The impact of the truck accident damaged the tanker section and an unspecified amount of the liquid molten wax spilled out onto the road surface.

No other persons or vehicles were involved in the truck accident.

Emergency personnel from several communities rushed to the single vehicle crash site. The truck driver suffered minor injuries in the truck accident. He was treated and stabilized at the scene and then transported to a nearby hospital. Officials described his injuries as not life threatening.

The rollover truck accident caused immediate traffic problems just as the afternoon commuter period was starting up. The overturned tanker truck forced traffic on the four lane highway to use the far left lane, which quickly backed up traffic for miles. There are few alternate routes around the collision location so most drivers had to remain on Highway 101 and deal with long traffic jams.

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California Department of Transportation sent several crews to clean up the crash site and clear the traffic lanes. One crew worked to repair the deep gorges in the road surface created when the tanker truck went out of control. Another group cleaned up the spilled liquid wax off the highway.

The traffic situation began to ease up around 6:30 p.m., about 4 hours after the truck accident, when California Highway Patrol reopened one of the traffic lanes. The gorges on the road had been repaired and the lanes were once again safe enough for travel. The crashed semi tanker had been moved to the right-hand shoulder of Highway 101.

At about 10:00 p.m. Monday night another tanker was brought to the site and a crew transferred the molten wax that remained in the tanker section into the second truck. Once the tanker of the disabled truck was empty a tow truck would be brought in to get the semi back on its wheels and off the highway. The flipped tanker was finally removed from the highway around 3:00 a.m. Tuesday morning about 12 hours after the initial truck accident.

CHP reconstructed the truck accident but have not made any determinations at this time. They do not believe drugs or alcohol were factors in the rollover crash. One theory is that the truck driver may have been driving unsafely just before the tanker flipped over.

No charges have been brought and the truck accident remains under investigation.

Truck Accidents 360 is a truck accident attorney directory that also reports on up to date truck accidents across the United States. Since trucking laws are governed by hundreds of regulations, it is important to consult with an expert truck accident lawyer who knows the trucking laws for each state. Find out more information about California truck accidents

Watch video explaining truck safety regarding improper loads

STEVEN GORDON:  I’ve been asked to speak about improper loading or stacking of the cargo.  This is a problem that happens quite a bit.  There are various kids of loads.  There are pipes, there are boxes, containers, fluids, so obviously in each given instance of what the load is you have to look at was it improperly loaded or maintained or latched, lashed down.

Load issues can actually be dangerous for the trucker as well.  There was a trucker out in California recently killed because he had to stop and the load shifted and came right through the cab and killed him.

So, what you need to understand here when a load issue is a cause of an accident, it’s not just the trucker and the truck company, but it’s the loading company who loaded this that also could be at fault and if so should be sued.  So you may have more defendants to understand so the jury can assess where the fault lies.

But loading and improper loading cause many different accidents.  For instance, a trucker when he’s turning, it shifts, causes the truck to turn over and lands on somebody.  This often times results in an accident.

Improper lashing down of loads can cause you losing a load.  We’ve all seen on the interstate where when you’re driving along all of the sudden, you know, something is right there and it causes an accident.

That’s the fault of the trucker and the truck company and the loading company.

So improper loading can cause quite an extensive array of accidents, and your truck accident lawyer needs to understand this and assess the situation properly

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San Francisco big rig truck accident on bay bridge; driver plummets 200 feet to his death

The CHP is still not revealing the name of the driver who died on Yerba Buena Island after his truck came off the Bay Bridge, flew 200 feet then crashed. He was a man from Hayward, CA.

The truck was disintegrated. It was a produce truck from a trucking company out of San Ramon, hauling pears. The driver was traveling westbound on the Bay Bridge in the right lanes.

Eyewitnesses say he drove along at 50 mph, then came to the S-curve where you’re supposed to slow down to 40 mph. He didn’t do that. According to the CHP, he tried to adjust at the last minute, his load shifted and he went off the edge, came all the way down and crashed on Yerba Buena Island.

Sargeant Trent Cross of the California Highway Patrol (CHP) stated that there are Caltrans engineers at the site who are looking at the Bay Bridge to make sure it is structurally safe and also that it is important that the CHP conduct a thorough investigation because there was a loss of life and there was some significant damage as far as the vehicle dropping 200 feet.

The CHP also says that there is nothing wrong with the design of the bridge – even with that S-curve – that zig-zag in the bridge and that there have been about 40 fender benders since it went in on Labor Day. The CHP says that obviously, when you have over a quarter million vehicles per day going over this bridge and you only have 40 fender benders, then there is nothing wrong with the bridge that a little slowing down wouldn’t help. According to the CHP when this driver had his load shift, it was too much and it came over the edge.

There was some concern earlier that there might be someone else in the truck, but it was later determined that there was no one else in the truck. There was 150 gallons of diesel fuel. According to the driver logs that were in his cab, the driver had just filled up. He had a full tank of gas, so there was some concern of what that’s going to do environmentally. The San Francisco Fire Department put down some absorbant material to try to soak up some of that.

Location of San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge Semi Truck accident

So the story is that the driver is dead after driving his semi off the Bay Bridge at the S-curve, crashing on Yerba Buena Island.

This is just the latest accident at the S-curve. Last month a big rig hauling groceries flipped over while taking the S-curve too fast. Nobody was injured in the October 14 crash that time but the truck’s load spilled across the upper decks and closed the bridge trapping drivers for some nine hours. The spilled groceries had to be hauled off by hand until the big rig could be uprighted and cleared. The CHP says the driver didn’t realize the configuration had changed and was going too fast to make the curve. The speed limit is 40 mph but a lot of drivers enter that curve going too fast.

If you need information about truck accident law pertaining to San Francisco, California, talk to a San Francisco truck accident attorney who is qualified to answer your questions. At TruckAccidents360.com, you can find a San Francisco truck accident lawyer who specializes in representing victims involved in semi truck, big rig truck injury accidents.

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