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According to "a source close to the probe" over at SF Chronicle, the driver in Saturday's West Portal Muni smashup "told investigators he blacked out shortly before the accident." Oh oh. Another anonymous source -- a rider who asked to remain veiled under a shroud on anonymity because he was asked not to speak publicly about the crash, unless he wanted to kiss any sweet settlement money bye-bye -- told the Chron that the L-Taraval driver was "slumped" over the train controls after the crash. Hm. Anyway, regarding the driver, a background check and drug tests are currently underway, which won't be done for several weeks. Also, said driver's name won't be released just yet. The entire investigation, it seems, might take "12-18 months," which, oddly enough, is the same amount of time one waits for a L train outside West Portal Station for the Muni traffic to clear. Update: Or was it a blackout? According to reports, an "early switch to manual power In the train tunnel" might have been the culprit. That, or God is punishing San Franciscans for yet another sin we committed. Stay tuned.
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there's another rumor going around that he is a diabetic.
And this is why the biggest fear for commercial airline pilots is being diagnosed with diabetes. That's an immediate yank of their flying card.
and you think that's wrong because......
dumb ass!
It doesn't matter if he's a diabetic. There are many people out there with diabetes who have to control their glucose imbalance. To blame the accident on his impairment is solely negligent. After all, diabetics realize that if they can't proactively gauge their glucose levels, it can kill them...or in this case, almost kill other people.
I think the ambulance chasing lawyers only need to know that he apparently switched out of automatic pilot (ATC? I think that's what someone called it) to Manual mode before he reached West Portal. I don't think it will matter for the 48 folks injured (okay, maybe 47 if we assume the driver doesn't sue MUNI) whether he was sleeping, blacked out, or just gambling that the T-Third would move out of his way by the time he got up to it (kinda like a California rolling stop ... MUNI rolling stop?). If it were left in automatic pilot until he reached West Portal, the software should have prevented the accident.
Well this didn't take long: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=6923958
Trans Union already blaming everyone besides their member...
" On Monday, union officials confirmed that the as yet unnamed driver did pass out and at the worst of times, because while Muni insists that going to manual mode violates procedure, the union says operators do it all the time to move trains up, to unload passengers and to maintain schedules.
And, they say that Muni knows it.
"If we go back and look at the records, which I guess they're doing now, investigating and going back and looking at that particular driver, but it needs to be looked at in terms of the whole last period of time throughout the whole system, inside the tunnel, how it's been operating... So, obviously it's an ongoing practice," said Transport Workers Union spokesman Irwin Lum. "
I hope the background check by the feds includes the passenger complaints. I figure this guy must have at least a couple.
Someone needs to teach the era of pointing fingers over and they need to learn the meaning of accountability ... that's the change we voted for in 2008.
Oops .. thinking faster than I type ... in english, I meant to write: Someone needs to teach the Trans union folks that the era of pointing fingers is over, and they need to learn the meaning of the word "accountability" ... that's the change we voted for in 2008.
Really? It *is* standard practice to take the trains out of auto mode (just watch the next time you take a train to/past West Portal). Management damn well knows about it too. If trains were always left on auto, there's no way they'd even come as close to the scheduled service as they do now.
The fact that the current train control software, despite being of a new and untested concept, is utter shit has been known to pretty much everyone for the past ten or so years. Anyone who's paid attention would know damn well that the number of passengers per hour (or rail cars per hour) has gone down with the new system (even by MUNI's own numbers).
eh, i'm sure the transit union unofficially tells drivers to claim blackout, like police officers always claim feeling threatened right before they pump an unarmed person full of lead. it's a get-out-of-blame card.
Maybe another word some organizations need to learn is "transparency"