Trimess

Monday, January 11, 2016

Sapporta and Lomax talk about Trimet fatalities

Sandi Day says she was tortured by Trimet managers after her incident
We know these board meeting are highly scripted. 

We also know that every member of the Trimet staff that speaks at these board meetings will only give the side of the story that supports Trimet managers.

You will never hear one negative thing about Trimet coming from any Trimet manager at these meetings so these "official" meetings  are of limited value after the public hearing part. It's basically a "cheer leading" session where Trimet managers blow their own horns and the Trimet 'board' members utter various platitudes. 

I have no way to verify that anything that Sapporta or Lomax says is the truth. 

I was never involved in any accidents so I have no real life experience in fatalities. 
 My only real experience in the realm of media was the SANDI DAY INCIDENT and Sandi gave a totally opposite opinion of her experience than what Lomax is presenting. 
All of the managers that were involved with Sandi Day are still managers at Trimet today. 
When you listen to the Trimet managers everything is wonderful in Trimet land.
When you listen to the employees (who have no voice) things are not so wonderful.

So do we believe Lomax or not? From what I hear no.

Also all the American public transit agencies refuse to put in pedestrian barriers due to "costs".
Interestingly they do that in Asia but not here.
Of course all these fatalities are blamed on the citizens that get killed or injured basically because "they didn't look". 
Surface light rail is well known to be a hazard to the citizenry, both pedestrians and in automobiles 
Public transit in the USA says this safety feature it too expensive


1 comment:

always roaming said...

From my correspondence with Day, you're correct, she was treated horribly by TriMet. It seemed Sandi received very little support from ANYONE ...the Union, the police, and even co-workers. And of course, gauging from public comments in the media, most wanted her thrown in jail and charged with murder. I'm sure to this day, she feels literally ostracized from society.

Those who follow my comments on the CPTDB forum know that I believe that Sandi Day was not materially at fault for what happened. TriMet was negligent in not supplying Sandi with safe equipment to drive. They knew operators had voiced complaints that the left mirror was blocking vision during left turns especially for drivers who are short in stature. A previous TriMet pedestrian fatality accident had taken place where the driver cited the mirror and A-pillar as the cause for not being able to see a pedestrian when making a left turn and even then, they failed to make changes to their equipment. Instead, they stressed it's the driver's responsibility to compensate for this faulty equipment by rocking-and-rolling in the seat and consequently focused on retraining operators instead of making substantive changes to the equipment. So not only do they put all the responsibility on the driver but by not addressing their inability to provide safe equipment to drive, set the stage for putting all the blame on the driver in future similar accidents.

Shelly Lomax may be a nice and moral individual outside her work life --I don't know-- but her comments and inactions sicken me to the point where I just about become physically ill when observing her unethical behavior and incompetence. Lomax and Sapporta compromise the safety of the public. The blood of the next pedestrian killed by a left-turning TriMet bus will be on their hands but I'm sure they won't care and will continue to put the entire blame on the operator involved.