DAVID SALE ON THE OVERTIME SCANDAL

Lets talk about safety at Trimet, or in reality lack of safety. Only months after my daughter was killed by a Trimet bus,
Trimet cut Safety and Security budgets by over 79%. I was told the reason they did that is it was put on the other budget.Two budgets? Lets look at with in one year later we filmed 15 buses ran the same red light in One Hour and seven minutes. One driver was actually filmed reading a magazine while waiting to run that red light. Lets look at two years later after the crash that killed my daughter and her friend at Glisan and Broadway, we observed almost 400 drivers leaving the Center Street garage without doing a pre-trip inspection. Pre-trip inspections are the first thing a commercial driver, holding a CDL certificate, is required to do especially when your freight is human lives. Fatigue being the subject of this conversation, is the least of their worries. On any given day, poor behavior and supervision of these drivers is common place. The fatigue wouldn't be so much of a problem if the management would restrict hours of operation as well as the union NOT promoting overtime for THEIR divers. The facts are clear and this agency needs oversight and reorganization as much as the industry itself needs regulation from the federal gov't. Safety is not a priority, nor do most at Trimet even understand the simple concept of safety, FREEDOM FROM RISK. They will never be free from risk if they don't change their behavior. That includes drivers all the way up the ladder to the management. Next time call me and I would love to join in on the discussion. David Sale
(Taken from the OPB discussion)