Shalaby: Westboro crash — We’re missing opportunities to make transit buses safer
As the Ottawa Citizen reports:
The acquittal of the Westboro crash bus driver, Aissatou Diallo, concluded the only criminal court case associated with this crash. The city of Ottawa has already accepted civil liability for the crash and was cleared from criminal liability. However, we are left with several unanswered questions about how to prevent another crash from happening, or at a minimum, reduce its severity.
Transit bus crashes are rare, but OC Transpo finds itself responsible for two major — and in some ways similar — collisions in a span of less than six years. Each of the 2013 OC Transpo-Via Rail collision near Fallowfield’s station and the 2019 Westboro station crash involved a double-decker bus, and each bus suffered an unusually extensive breach of the passenger compartment which led to occupants being ejected. And each caused multiple fatalities and dozens of injuries — the majority of victims were seated in the upper decks.
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