TriMet ends suit with largest settlement to date

PORTLAND, Ore. – It is the largest settlement TriMet has ever paid.

Meanwhile, 68-year-old Pat Smith's life is forever different, requiring a prosthetic leg and a wheelchair to get around. Her lawyer said the $1.5 million settlement TriMet will pay will help Smith renovate her King City home to better get around without a leg.

Smith lost her leg when she was run over by a bus January 2008. Hit in a crosswalk as the bus made a left turn, Smith wonders now why TriMet hasn't made more significant changes since that fateful day two years ago.

That's because her accident sounds a lot like the deadly one just about two weeks ago in Portland's Pearl District.

There are a lot of similarities. When Pat Smith learned two people were killed by a TriMet bus around midnight April 24 she was devastated such a similar accident could happen again. That bus also hit pedestrians in a crosswalk.

Smith has had to make all kinds of adjustments in the past two years after her leg was taken off by the TriMet bus. Her accident happened at Northeast 21st Avenue and Multnomah Street.
      
"They say on some of the buses there's a blind spot," said attorney Jane Paulson. "Drivers are trained to rock to see around it. But Pat Smith was in the cross walk, and the driver still ran over her."

Paulson said the new accident two and a half weeks ago, where the driver turned left into a group of five pedestrians in a crosswalk, killing two, shows TriMet still relies on drivers to keep people safe.

Indeed, TriMet recently released a training safety bulletin reminding drivers to "rock and roll" to see around the pillar in the window of their door. The bulletin also reminded drivers to scan for pedestrians with their eyes.

Paulson asks why TriMet doesn't just remove the barriers to driver's sight, rather than counting on the drivers and risking human error, to make sure people are safe. 

"With the training our drivers receive they can eliminate those visual barriers, and get around them," said Bekki Witt at TriMet. "Understandable that [there may be something we can do.] But, then again, we need the mirrors to see and the pillars that are in the windshield are part of the construction of the bus."

The driver in the 2008 incident was suspended at the time, but she kept her job. However, we know the driver in that accident was wearing an iPod at the time.

Smith was whisked away on a stretcher after being hit by that bus, and doctors had to amputate her leg. The video shows the horrified reactions from passengers, and the reaction from the driver – who jumps out of her seat in despair.

As for Paulson, she thinks "drivers are human, and days are long," so TriMet should "put in every precaution" so this doesn't happen again.