What happens next: after a bus hits a pedestrian?

DJ, can you read? WTF is your problem?

Re-read the passage –> PRIVATE BUS and REPORTED IT TO POLICE.

Yes I also called the bus company 3 weeks ago when it happened.

It’s kinda hard to type when you can’t move your arm higher than you elbow, so my apologies to you for being so damn late in posting it. I realise that you must be a busy person and need up to date information the minute it happens.

Oh and NO I wasn’t asking for sympathy.

Well the driver would get counselling, and there police report for the accident which would go to the officer at ACTION responsible for accidents and action (no pun intended lol) would be taken if at fault.

As for not being able to identify the bus, if you had a bus number/route number and time they may be able to identify the bus based on route and scheduling data both from the ticket machines and their bus/driver timetabling system. However if you’re telling them it was sometime on one of the major busy bus routes it would probably be very difficult for them to tell unless there was noticable damage to the bus

tylersmayhem said :

Not while buses are merging from a slip lane should we give way – although they forsce this by just flooring it in front of you. Please tell me if I’m wrong here as far as the law goes!?

Buses are big, and don’t exactly respond “quickly” for speed changes. Legally you’re only required to give way to a bus pulling out from the kerb or while it’s turning, not that anyone in Canberra pays attention to that anyway. Common sense would figure that you see a bus going to merge or needing to change lanes that you create enough space to allow it to do so, buses have set routes they don’t have the luxury of being able to take the next exit and then go back. The majority of buses i’ve seen or have been on don’t indicate and barge in like most Canberra drivers, they indicate until all the morons squeeze past then change lanes when someone sensibly lets them in.

Then again there are stupid bus drivers out there but they’re mostly the ones who don’t give way at intersections (t-junctions or roundabouts) and you come to a complete stop to avoid crashing into them when they pull out.

nyssa76 said :

After my car was hit by a private bus (and car door hit me as I was getting out of the car at the time), NOTHING.

So much for reporting accidents to police and insurance.

Did you report it to both Police and ACTION? Ask for a reference number? Take digital images of the injuries or damage? See a doctor? Call a friend or a friend of a friend? Report it on RA ages after it happened and expect a general reaction in support of you?

PeraPHon – my understanding from having done some work for ACTION about 8 years ago was that each bus does record how many people get on at each stop but I don’t recall whether the time was recorded. This data was then downloaded at the end of that bus’s day to a centralised point and the data colated for reporting (which is where I came in). As I say it was a while ago, so I’d assume things have changed but I’d say that they are likely to have some kind of route data, even if it isn’t GPS based.

I don’t know about the accident previously referred to in the rest of the comments but I was in a bus on Monday that was involved in an accident. I have no idea about the rest of the comments and the references they make.And thankyou to everyone who answered my question about what happens to the bus driver.
I would be curious to see how many of the “buses are always wrong” frequent buses. I agree with H1NG0 it does work both ways buses (ACTION and private) and general car users can be as bad as each other.

Seems like a fairly logical course of action to follow, so it makes perfect sense that it would be changed. If it works, change it.

Perhaps another reason for adding GPS into the ACTION buses? As well as giving data to do route modelling and optimisation, they would be able to tell which bus was where, when and driven by whom.

i was under the impression, from some years ago, that a driver was automatically stood (with pay) down in the event of a collision of any sort, until such times as an investigation (police or simply ACTION mgt) cleared them to drive again. dunno if/when/why that changed…

IT seems that “cover-up” is a topic of the day…by me admittedly.

ACTION claimed there was no way to identify who was driving tha tparticular bus because it was a busy route.

So presumably, no witnesses on the bus, came forward to dob in the hit and run bus driver. Or any drivers behind the bus.

An ACTION bus once sideswiped and seriously injured a road construction worker. The bus was speeding and not in its lane.

The worker was facing the other way doing his work and had no reason to expect that the bus could hit him because he was over 50cm off the roadway.

ACTION claimed there was no way to identify who was driving tha tparticular bus because it was a busy route. So nothing happened there.

Moral of the story – PLEASE observe speed limits in roadworks areas.