Cross with Caution
Mark Groce: I'm Mark Groce, and you're listening to TransitTrax, New York City Transit's podcast service.
(Audio of buses)
On any given day, New York City Transit has buses in service throughout the five boroughs, carrying 2.5 million passengers a day to work, school and everywhere in between.
(Audio of buses)
The men and women behind the wheel of the buses are trained in every aspect of safe driving, as Cordell Rogers, Assistant Chief Training Officer for the Department of Buses explains.
Cordell Rogers, New York City Transit, Department of Buses: We put them through a 7 to 10-day training program. From that training program we're able to determine whether or not first they can pass the New York State CDL test. First we start out teaching them the basics of the bus, we familiarize them with the bus, how to make a left turn, how to make a right turn, how to look ahead in traffic, how to operate the doors, even the signaling. The signals for the bus are on the floor, so we familiarize them how to operate one of our buses. We take them into areas where basically there is very little traffic, the second time there's a bit more traffic, then gradually work them into midtown Manhattan and we have them doing bus stops, doing everything that a regular bus operator would do in customer service prior to them actually going into customer service.
Mark Groce: We put our operators through the paces not only on the streets of New York, but behind the wheel of our hi-tech simulator, before they are sent out in passenger service
Cordell Rogers: We started back in 1999, and now the simulator takes part - there are 3 different days of training that they get in the simulator; day two for instance, they go into a simulated environment in which the only thing that's moving in that environment is the bus. They're exposed to how to make the left turn, how to make the right turn, how to look ahead and anticipate various hazards (...) The person in a neutral environment, in which the only thing that's going to be damaged is perhaps their ego, can operate safely, and see the proper procedure for doing so, without first being thrust into the fire, so to speak.
Mark Groce: Despite the fact that our bus operators are some of the best-trained in the world, the motorists they share the streets with aren't; and that, unfortunately, translates into accidents. Most just involve other vehicles, but some do involve pedestrians.
Cordell Rogers: When we analyzed the data from 2006, we saw that there were a lot of things that were going on with pedestrians that if they only avoided certain particular acts they could be a lot safer - for instance if a lot of pedestrians these days walking about with cell phones and iPods, and various other things, not really paying attention to the bus operator, because they assume the bus operator sees them. There are accidents that were happening pretty much during the daytime, during dry weather -- in looking at that, we saw that it wasn't particularly at night, when people are running off per se, but it was during the day.
Mark Groce: To assist pedestrians in identifying unsafe habits, and to help promote awareness in and around bus stops and intersections, New York City Transit developed a new brochure: Cross with Caution, based on an analysis of 2006 accident statistics.
Cordell Rogers: What we noticed was that there were certain intersections, 70 in total, that had over 500 involvements with buses and pedestrians, and 34th Street/7th Avenue - that is a hot spot. Flatbush Avenue and Avenue U in Brooklyn; Fordham Road and Webster Ave: problem spot - you need to be mindful to be safe to traverse that area. Basically we want the pedestrians to be safe and we want to arm them with the knowledge of what they can to do to be safe.
Mark Groce: Knowing where these intersections are is important, but to keep safe, there are some basic safety tips pedestrians need to keep in mind when crossing the street, according to Adam Boneker, of the Office of System Safety.
Adam Boneker, New York City Transit, Office of System Safety: When people are crossing the street, they should make sure that they go to a corner, or intersection, a crosswalk; when they step out into the middle of the street from in between cars, this adds much more difficulty for the driver to see them. Because there are so many other barriers for a driver to see along his normal route: like lampposts, street signs and everything else you see along a New York City street.
Mark Groce: Rogers agrees, adding: if you can't see the operator in his or her mirror, they can't see you. So...
Cordell Rogers: Don't reach for the bus with a cane; don't reach for the bus with an umbrella to try to open up the doors. If the bus is leaving the bus stop, don't run after the bus; wait, there's going to be another bus.
Mark Groce: As important as these safety tips are, the brochure isn't just for pedestrians.
Cordell Rogers: We want the operators to be cognizant as well as to the particular locations that are a little bit more problematic, where we're having more accidents; we want them to be attentive, there's a lot of training that goes on for bus operators, so we feel that this is just another tool in our arsenal that we can help them to be more alert.
Mark Groce: The Cross with Caution brochure will be distributed to pedestrians and available on buses. For more information on bus and pedestrian safety, log on to www.mta.info. For TransitTrax, I'm Mark Groce. Thanks for listening and thanks for riding with New York City Transit.
Back to Transittrax Main Page
Mark Groce: I'm Mark Groce, and you're listening to TransitTrax, New York City Transit's podcast service.
(Audio of buses)
On any given day, New York City Transit has buses in service throughout the five boroughs, carrying 2.5 million passengers a day to work, school and everywhere in between.
(Audio of buses)
The men and women behind the wheel of the buses are trained in every aspect of safe driving, as Cordell Rogers, Assistant Chief Training Officer for the Department of Buses explains.
Cordell Rogers, New York City Transit, Department of Buses: We put them through a 7 to 10-day training program. From that training program we're able to determine whether or not first they can pass the New York State CDL test. First we start out teaching them the basics of the bus, we familiarize them with the bus, how to make a left turn, how to make a right turn, how to look ahead in traffic, how to operate the doors, even the signaling. The signals for the bus are on the floor, so we familiarize them how to operate one of our buses. We take them into areas where basically there is very little traffic, the second time there's a bit more traffic, then gradually work them into midtown Manhattan and we have them doing bus stops, doing everything that a regular bus operator would do in customer service prior to them actually going into customer service.
Mark Groce: We put our operators through the paces not only on the streets of New York, but behind the wheel of our hi-tech simulator, before they are sent out in passenger service
Cordell Rogers: We started back in 1999, and now the simulator takes part - there are 3 different days of training that they get in the simulator; day two for instance, they go into a simulated environment in which the only thing that's moving in that environment is the bus. They're exposed to how to make the left turn, how to make the right turn, how to look ahead and anticipate various hazards (...) The person in a neutral environment, in which the only thing that's going to be damaged is perhaps their ego, can operate safely, and see the proper procedure for doing so, without first being thrust into the fire, so to speak.
Mark Groce: Despite the fact that our bus operators are some of the best-trained in the world, the motorists they share the streets with aren't; and that, unfortunately, translates into accidents. Most just involve other vehicles, but some do involve pedestrians.
Cordell Rogers: When we analyzed the data from 2006, we saw that there were a lot of things that were going on with pedestrians that if they only avoided certain particular acts they could be a lot safer - for instance if a lot of pedestrians these days walking about with cell phones and iPods, and various other things, not really paying attention to the bus operator, because they assume the bus operator sees them. There are accidents that were happening pretty much during the daytime, during dry weather -- in looking at that, we saw that it wasn't particularly at night, when people are running off per se, but it was during the day.
Mark Groce: To assist pedestrians in identifying unsafe habits, and to help promote awareness in and around bus stops and intersections, New York City Transit developed a new brochure: Cross with Caution, based on an analysis of 2006 accident statistics.
Cordell Rogers: What we noticed was that there were certain intersections, 70 in total, that had over 500 involvements with buses and pedestrians, and 34th Street/7th Avenue - that is a hot spot. Flatbush Avenue and Avenue U in Brooklyn; Fordham Road and Webster Ave: problem spot - you need to be mindful to be safe to traverse that area. Basically we want the pedestrians to be safe and we want to arm them with the knowledge of what they can to do to be safe.
Mark Groce: Knowing where these intersections are is important, but to keep safe, there are some basic safety tips pedestrians need to keep in mind when crossing the street, according to Adam Boneker, of the Office of System Safety.
Adam Boneker, New York City Transit, Office of System Safety: When people are crossing the street, they should make sure that they go to a corner, or intersection, a crosswalk; when they step out into the middle of the street from in between cars, this adds much more difficulty for the driver to see them. Because there are so many other barriers for a driver to see along his normal route: like lampposts, street signs and everything else you see along a New York City street.
Mark Groce: Rogers agrees, adding: if you can't see the operator in his or her mirror, they can't see you. So...
Cordell Rogers: Don't reach for the bus with a cane; don't reach for the bus with an umbrella to try to open up the doors. If the bus is leaving the bus stop, don't run after the bus; wait, there's going to be another bus.
Mark Groce: As important as these safety tips are, the brochure isn't just for pedestrians.
Cordell Rogers: We want the operators to be cognizant as well as to the particular locations that are a little bit more problematic, where we're having more accidents; we want them to be attentive, there's a lot of training that goes on for bus operators, so we feel that this is just another tool in our arsenal that we can help them to be more alert.
Mark Groce: The Cross with Caution brochure will be distributed to pedestrians and available on buses. For more information on bus and pedestrian safety, log on to www.mta.info. For TransitTrax, I'm Mark Groce. Thanks for listening and thanks for riding with New York City Transit.
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