Let's make certain to utilize the futuristic safety tools we already have

Final Draft:

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: JB
Date: Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 6:22 PM
Subject: Opinion / Letter of Public Interest / Re-submission /  Let's make certain we're utilizing the futuristic safety tools we already have
To: <letters@pennlive.com>

Hello Editor,

I received a call from your office this afternoon to confirm this letter and I believe this new draft will show more strength and understanding. You have my permission to edit this as you see fit. Thank you for your consideration of publishing this. I will try to call your office in a short while to confirm this letter as well.

Best regards,

JB.

Let’s make certain to utilize the futuristic safety tools we already have

Dear Editor,

I’ve been living in Central PA for two years now, after relocating here from Idaho. Out West, I worked driving large trucks for 20 years, and also focused on aircraft safety at Horizon Air for six. In addition, I’ve been a frequent newspaper opinion contributor, sometimes writing with a strong emphasis on transportation safety issues. 

Now, as a disabled person, I’ve been working at a Work Skills Program since 2018, and am grateful for this type of productive work. From my house, I catch the bus to and from work, and though I’ve been impressed with every parameter of their excellent, efficient and friendly service for thousands of miles, a handful of times I’ve sensed danger that we can avoid better. 

The majority of my fellow bus passengers are also disabled and some don’t have much of a voice there, since their guardians or advocates are seldom aboard. Some may not have enough experience or the ability to notice every hazard, so I try to speak up for them and their equal rights for harmless environments.

 

My top concern for now is this:

 

While riding in a crowded Public bus in spring of 2018, the driver hit a long undivided two lane straightaway and sped up. Soon she was exceeding 80 mph in a posted 55 zone, and continued this rate steadily over our next 5 to 6 miles. I wish that my camera then would have been of enough high quality to zoom in to show this clearly.

A Mobile Logic Unit being assembled

Months later I experienced a synchronicity when work management trained me for a new task of assembling “Mobile Logic Units” for bus fleets. When I asked our bus drivers about the inner workings of these black-box-like devices, they told me that these recorders transpose and save tremendous amounts of data. For instance, in areas where commercial motorists exceed speed limits, the variegated maps are programmed to mark these spots, and indicate them with red flags.

I’m curious though if busy bus managers make time to address these warnings about bending or breaking speed laws. Because by many standards operating a commercial vehicle at 25 mph over the posted limit is consider reckless driving – and with a bus full of nearly voiceless disabled people to boot!  

Coupled with some previous driver-distracting concerns, to which bus management inadequately responded*, my intuition niggles at me rigorously that perhaps they do not. And if PennDOT has authority to conduct audits for such vital bus information, I suggest they investigate bus and other transportation services to detect if there’s a pattern of missed warning flags, After all, why would our tremendous public bus services invest in such expensive cutting-edge safety features if managers might be too busy to notice them, or even worse: willfully ignoring these?

Indeed, endangering already disabled passengers like my colleagues should be held as an uppermost consideration to be avoided at all costs. 

 Note to Editor: Last week I sent this suggestion to PennDOT in a similar message.  

Thank you,

JB