Bus Driver Died While Attempting To Open Bus Doors While Bus Was Moving

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  Michigan Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (Project) (MIFACE) ; Michigan State University. Department of Medicine. Occupational and Environmental Medicine
• Description:
  In winter 2013, a female bus driver in her 40s died when she was run over by her bus while attempting to re-enter the bus as it moved forward in a parking lot. The decedent arrived at her last stop on the north end of her bus run and drove her bus into the parking lot. The bus faced east and was positioned near the top of a slight downward slope in the parking lot. The bus wheels were turned to the right. The decedent opened the front bus door and the only passenger on the bus de-boarded. The back door of the bus was closed when the decedent de-boarded after the passenger. The bus transmission was in Drive. The decedent did not set the parking brake. The back door was closed - if the back door was open, the bus would not move. After she de-boarded, the bus began to move forward and the front door closed. In an attempt to stop the moving bus, she ran alongside it and tried to place her hands between the front door flaps to push the doors apart so she could re-board the bus. The front wheels of the bus ran over her foot and up her leg, causing her to fall down. A bystander attempted to move her away from the path of the bus, but was unsuccessful. As the bus continued to move forward, the rear wheels ran over her. Witnesses called for emergency response. The bus stopped after colliding with two parked, unoccupied vehicles. The decedent was transported to a local hospital by ambulance and was declared dead at the hospital. Michigan FACE investigators identified the following items as key contributing factors in this incident: 1) Standard operating procedures for shutting down the bus were not followed - the bus was not placed in Neutral with the parking brake applied when the decedent disembarked
  
  2) Attempting to re-enter moving vehicle
  
  3) Safety checks made by the safety officer did not include bus shutdown procedures. RECOMMENDATIONS: 1. Employees should be instructed to never try to re-enter a moving bus. 2. Transit authorities should extend the bus driver audit of driving work practices to include the driver's conformance to bus securement policies when leaving the bus unattended. 3. Transit authorities should label bus door controller positions for clarity. 4. Employers who require commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers to be medically certified (either by law and/or per company policy) should require the use of medical professionals knowledgeable of the requirements of 49 CFR 391.41-.49 to determine the physical fitness of the driver. 5. Police departments should ensure an adequate number of radio dispatchers are on duty to handle radio traffic in a timely manner. Recommendation to Bus Manufacturers: Install a seat safety switch or similar interlock mechanism to turn the engine off and apply a parking brake if the driver leaves the seat prior to placing the bus in Park.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Automobiles Biopharmaceutics Manufacturing And Industrial Facilities Occupational Health Safety Transportation
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Accident-potential Accident-prevention Author Keywords: Transit Authority Boarding Bus Bus-drivers Bus Driver Drivers Injuries Injury-prevention Machine-operation Machine-operators Motor-vehicles OSHA Region 5 Pharmaceuticals Physical-fitness Transportation-industry Transportation-workers Traumatic-injuries

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• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Prevention through Design (PtD) ; Motor Vehicles
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  State
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHSFACE13MI019
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  Michigan ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-13
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20045684
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2015-102785
• Citation:
  Morgantown, WV: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, FACE 13MI019, 2014 Mar ; :1-13
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2014
• Performing Organization:
  Michigan State University
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  48-49 - Transportation and Warehousing - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  2005/07/01
• End Date:
  2026/06/30
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:18c79ca3a0a90a0c928be93796c6877105df7d4bf3ca7a8a22a17e63609995e10fbfe552a4cbbb78a222aa5e1cb92a75962d483d98b4c218b355a26e6adc6748
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/165096/cdc_165096_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.29 MB ]