Bus driver reads obituary on the job
HEADED to the railway station on the number 1 bus that passed through Manners Street at 3.45pm last Friday, a Capital Times journalist decided to disembark when she saw the driver reading a newspaper, aptly on the obituary page.
The roads around Manners Street have become a hotspot for traffic incidents since November 2010 when the council made changes to the lanes, resulting in several reports of injuries and one fatality.
Initially the driver was only reading the article while paused after each bus stop, but while cruising down Manners Street, she picked up the paper and was distracted while the bus was in motion.
This perhaps explained the near collision with a car on Courtenay Place earlier in the journey.
A bus hit a woman in her mid-20s last week outside the Opera House, just along the street from where this bus driver was seen reading the paper. Wellington runner Venessa Green died in June this year after being hit by a GoWellington bus between Mercer and Manners Streets. She was the seventh pedestrian to be hit in the bus lanes since they were opened a year ago.
The council has announced it is funding independent psychological research into pedestrian behaviour in a bid to stem the rate of accidents in Wellington’s Golden Mile.
Capital Times thinks that bus drivers should have their eyes on the road while driving, but agrees that Wellingtonians who cross the road texting and listening to their iPods need to learn to look left, right, left.
GoWellington was unable to comment before we went to press.










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