Assaults make drivers leery of seat belts
Colleagues speculate about friend’s death
Flowers at the site honour STM bus driver Sylvain Ferland, who co-workers suggest might not have been wearing a seat belt in Tuesday’s crash.
MONTREAL - Weaving in and out from stop to stop along busy Sherbrooke St., a wily nine-year veteran Montreal bus driver said there’s a simple reason many bus drivers don’t wear seat belts.“Assaults,” said the 57-year-old driver on the 24 bus route.
“It takes three or four seconds to get out of your seat belt and when someone is spitting on you or punching you, that counts.”
The driver, who spoke on condition his name not be used, said many of the 3,000 who drive for the Société de transport de Montréal do not regularly wear seat belts even though they are legally required to do so, like nearly all drivers and passengers in seats with seat belts.
Taxi drivers are among the few exemptions along with those backing up or who have a medical reason.
The bus driver added that many of his colleagues are shaken up about the death of Sylvain Ferland, 49, an STM bus driver for 23 years, in a collision on Tuesday in Dorval between his No. 196 bus and a BMW. Ferland was pinned under the bus after it rolled over at about 6 p.m. at 55th and Lindsay Aves. It was the first on-the-job fatality for an STM bus driver in at least 25 years.
The passenger in the BMW, Janet Stoddard Snider, 61, was killed. Police suspect alcohol was a factor and obtained a warrant to have the blood of the BMW’s 33-year-old female driver, Stacey Snider, who is the daughter of the woman who died, tested for alcohol. Test results could take as long as a month or two.
The woman was still in critical condition on Thursday, police said.
Passengers on the bus told police the driver was ejected from the bus.
Although police are looking into that and the possibility Ferland might not have had his seat belt on, Montreal police Constable Danny Richer said it is too early to conclude anything.
A few bus drivers who spoke to The Gazette Thursday speculated that Ferland probably was not wearing his seat belt.
“That’s the only way he could have been ejected,” said a 63-year-old driver on the 15 bus route, who also spoke on the condition his name not be used.
The seat belt drivers now wear is a lap belt and “it can be a little tight around the waist,” he said.
“If I have an accident I’m stuck in it.”
The driver on the 24 route said he used to not wear his seat belt. “Then I had an accident,” he said. “A car ran a red light and crossed right in front of me. I braked and flew out of my seat, landing on my knees on the floor. Since then I wear my seat belt.
“Many drivers don’t wear their seat belts. But when something happens to them, they start wearing it,” he said.
Three-point, over-the-shoulder seat belts common in cars may be safer for most drivers but they “would hamper my movements,” the driver said. Buses have much larger steering wheels and drivers need to put their shoulders into the turns, he explained.
Nadine Bernard, a spokesperson for Nova Bus, which makes the STM buses, said the three-point belt is an option but “very few” public transit buses choose it. Most have lap belts, she said.
The STM does insist that its bus drivers obey the Quebec Highway Safety Code, an STM spokesperson, Marianne Rouette, said.
“From time to time, the STM sends reminders (as we do for the use of cellphones) that they have to comply with this code,” she said. “We do field interventions when we observe that the driver is not wearing his seat belt. Disciplinary measures can be taken after repeated offenses (when) the driver does not comply.”
Drivers not wearing their seat belts can be fined $80 and get three demerit points.
Despite Tuesday’s accident, STM bus drivers and métro operators union president Denis Vaillancourt is lobbying to have bus drivers exempted from wearing seat belts.
Although there were three people killed in STM bus collisions last year, those who died were not inside the buses, Vaillancourt said. Seven of the 14 passengers on the bus on Tuesday were injured, including two seriously, but Vaillancourt said city buses are generally quite safe for their passengers.
The average city speed for a bus is 17 kilometers an hour, he said.
But bus drivers are often assaulted by passengers.
From 2008 to 2011 there were 140 major physical assaults on bus drivers that required medical care and time off work, he said
Bus drivers should have the same exemption as Montreal’s 10,861 taxi drivers, who are not required to wear their seat belts on city streets — but must on highways — so that they can react more quickly if attacked, Vaillancourt said.
If people on a bus see that a driver can move out of his seat and defend himself they may be less likely to act up, he said.
“We don’t want our drivers running after people, but we don’t want our drivers prisoners in their seats.”
