EMTA bus crashes

what is wrong with EMTA and who is in charge of making sure that the bus is safe for its ridders alot of eldery people ride emta on both the lift and the bus i have the president of the union that reps the emta workers at city council meetings stating that when a work order is filled out by a driver that often times the bus just gets put on another route somebody should be held accountable before there is a death

You might want to try using punctuation and capitalization. Also, when your words show up with a red line under them, it generally means you spelled the word wrong. Your have good points, but when there are simple errors like yours, your good points get lost in the presentation.

former erie dem wrote:

what is wrong with EMTA and who is in charge of making sure that the bus is safe for its ridders alot of eldery people ride emta on both the lift and the bus i have the president of the union that reps the emta workers at city council meetings stating that when a work order is filled out by a driver that often times the bus just gets put on another route somebody should be held accountable before there is a death

oh Kali, go diagram a sentence and get rid of the "dangling particicles."

oh Kali, go diagram a sentence and get rid of the "dangling particicles." or is it participles?

be nice i have a hard time typing since my stroke 6 months ago

Kali are you profreading all the posts? Get a life.....

Bus 0102 was only written up for brake failure 10 or 15 times previous to this.
I sent an e-mail to EMTA management (which they answered) stating the Unions strong concerns about several buses losing their brakes and named this particular bus as the most common.
The air portion of the brake system (treadle valve, etc,,,) occasionally fails leaving the operator with no brakes at all. I also caomlained to city council on June 28th about this EXACT problem.
I guarantee the "fix" will be driver error and I will receive some form of discipline again for speaking out about this ongoing danger.
Unfortunately the only way this will be rectified is when a prominent or politically correct person gets killed by our buses.

The charges raised here must be investigated immediately by the press and the authorities. No citzen of Erie should be subjected to danger by our public transit system's mismanagers.

Isn't there a government agency - federal or state - that should be involved here??

the bus drivers need to stop running stop signs.

Ben wrote:

Bus 0102 was only written up for brake failure 10 or 15 times previous to this.
I sent an e-mail to EMTA management (which they answered) stating the Unions strong concerns about several buses losing their brakes and named this particular bus as the most common.
The air portion of the brake system (treadle valve, etc,,,) occasionally fails leaving the operator with no brakes at all. I also caomlained to city council on June 28th about this EXACT problem.
I guarantee the "fix" will be driver error and I will receive some form of discipline again for speaking out about this ongoing danger.
Unfortunately the only way this will be rectified is when a prominent or politically correct person gets killed by our buses.

You should contact a member of the media (If your union will back you) about this.(I don't think the paper really looks at these boards.)

...I think it's time EMTA gets their butts sued. First, by the two homeowners whose property was damaged and secondly by the bus driver whose brakes failed. Call them on the carpet. If the bus driver has a clean driving record, the case will be a no-brainer. I wonder what Divecchios flunkie Amendola would say.

I know of 2 incidents where EMTA busses have caught on fire. Once when I was on. And another time when my friend was going to catch it, but refused because when the driver reported the smoke via the radio, they told him to keep on driving it. When the bus I was on pulled into the lot, the mechanic tried to tell us that there was steam coming out of the bus. I don’t think so. I am visually impaired, and I may not have been able to see it, but believe me folks, I know smoke when I smell it. It turns out that the engine was on fire.
EMTA…you better shape up!

I am a Union representative and I have already gone to my supervisors, and to their supervisors and to the EMTA board (they stated management is not accountable to anyone). I also tried Erie city council as they appoint the majority of board members.
The County Executive is the only person that has even attempted to address our concerns, but I believe he found the EMTA board unreceptive.
I've gone to the paper numerous times but it appears EMTA management and the majority of news media in Erie is pretty closely wrapped.
Like vampires, Emta does its best work in the dark, suppression and oppression is the name of the game. Eliminate as much negative records as possible and make viewing of any remaining documents as difficult as possible. Then attack whomever speaks out about the safety issues.
Unfortunately I see this going one of two ways, admit things need to be fixed at EMTA and fix them, meaning heads will roll and a multitude of politically correct people will have to admit to ignoring our concerns for years, or once again blame the operator for a vehicle that has been problematic and written up previously for the precise problem that caused this accident. I think they will go with the second choice.

Are the results in on the test for the crash at 32nd and Legion. Supposely MPD was checking on the brakes. Hope they didn't have to send the bus to the lab.

Ben wrote:

I am a Union representative and I have already gone to my supervisors, and to their supervisors and to the EMTA board (they stated management is not accountable to anyone). I also tried Erie city council as they appoint the majority of board members.
The County Executive is the only person that has even attempted to address our concerns, but I believe he found the EMTA board unreceptive.
I've gone to the paper numerous times but it appears EMTA management and the majority of news media in Erie is pretty closely wrapped.
Like vampires, Emta does its best work in the dark, suppression and oppression is the name of the game. Eliminate as much negative records as possible and make viewing of any remaining documents as difficult as possible. Then attack whomever speaks out about the safety issues.
Unfortunately I see this going one of two ways, admit things need to be fixed at EMTA and fix them, meaning heads will roll and a multitude of politically correct people will have to admit to ignoring our concerns for years, or once again blame the operator for a vehicle that has been problematic and written up previously for the precise problem that caused this accident. I think they will go with the second choice.

You would think EMTA's biggest fear would be a crash involving one of their vehicles with passengers on board, and that safety would be the first priority. Could you imagine being in the Chair at EMTA with the letters start rolling in from lawyers representing injured passengers because there was an accident with one the thier buses due to deferred maintenance and repairs? EMTA receives federal dollars to help run the system.. What is going on? Where are the funds for repairs? I could imagine the cost of replacing a set of brake pads or tires would be much lower than the cost of a Civil Suit. I cannot even fathom leaving a vehicle on the road that has numerous incidents of brake system failure. Even if they could not duplicate the problem in the shop, they should leave it parked until a factory representative examines the vehicle and then documents what they find and then document if it's cleard for the road or if they repaired it.

I used to drive for EMTA and can attest for what Ben is saying. I wrote up countless buses up for safety issues, usually involving braking and steering and most went unresolved.

Keep in mind that EMTA inspects their own equipment! I can't tell you how many buses I was assigned that just received a fresh inspection sticker a day or so before that had burnt out marker lights, bald tires, non functioning speedometers, brakes that pulled sharply to the left or right when applied, etc. These are issues that should cause even your car to fail an inspection, let alone a commercial vehicle!

The buses that are in the worst shape are their school service buses used on what they call "trippers." Let's just say if I had children, I wouldn't let them go anywhere near a 9400 series bus.

Let's not forget the incident with the biker that got run down on Sterretania Road a few years ago by bus 9757. Even though the accident wasn't caused by a mechanical defect, when the State Police examined the bus afterwards and then examined all the operator write-ups for the bus over the few months prior, what they found was interesting. None of the safety related problems that were written up were corrected! The State boys went as far as to confiscate the inspection sticker until EMTA could show them ALL the problems found with the bus were corrected.

Just got the paper today. EMTA is charging our operator with "involvement in a serious chargeable accident resulting in multiple injuries, property damages and damage to EMTA equipment including but not limited to any other future charges from ongoing investigations, both by EMTA and law enforcement. On June 18th I spoke at the Erie City Council meeting and told them of our fears, I gave them accounts from over the years to show it was an ongoing problem, February of 02, 9757 lost its brakes and went into a house, it had multiple write-ups for the brakes. That bus is the same that "former op" speaks of the police checking, and what he says is true. I also mentioned bus 0105 it lost it's brakes and slammed into a vehicle in front of it, the operator cited bad brakes. The best part of that one is shortly before the wreck our garage superintendant and operations manager both drove the bus and actually said to people "the brakes grab and pull a little but it's ok. The bus was then switched over to another route with another driver, maybe in hopes of stopping the complaints? The new driver then had the accident shortly after the change.,we also have a number of drivers who, if it weren't for the retaliation factor would be happy to relate similar problems and "similar fixes" I explained to City Council that we had actual tangible evidence of this ongoing problem unfortunately they followed the EMTA boards lead and never addressed the issue.
I do have a suggestion for EMTA, use the same amount of energy for your preventive maintenance that you do for retaliatory discipline and C,Y,A and the problem should be fixed by the end of the week.

Have E-Mail letters to EMTA and times news from 1/22/07 complaining about bus used on school trippers January 8th 9th and 10th while written up for bad brakes each of those days, same letter complained of newer vehicles "losing" brakes like 0102 just did again, also complained of wheels falling off 0083, in this same E-MAIL I made this statement to them and this is a direct quote

"As it stands now I must say that the next preventible tragedy that occurs will be the responsibility of all the politically correct people who stood by and did nothing, be they board members, politicians, human resource or media.
I can see a lot of work and taxpayer money going into "fixing" this mess. One more problem to add. Now that EMTA understands that E-MAIL makes for a verifiable document they will no longer communicate with the Union in this manner.
EMTAs integrity and that of their management is "truly underwhelming"

To Ben, who is the bus driver who preaches to passengers about Jesus Christ and being saved? It has become outright harrassment. This idiot was on the route 27 bus last Wednesday morning. I have never seen anything like it.

And who is the black lady driver who is nice as pie to black passengers but won't talk much to white passengers?