The Do-Nothing Bus Driver

Illustration. Via FixWMATA

From John:

My bus the other morning (the 7W into Pentagon) got in a fender-bender out on the 395 HOV lane—as far as I can tell we rear-ended a car. It wasn't terrible—a big jolt and my neck's a bit stiff, but I didn't see any damage on the other car.

The issue is how our driver handled this.

He did not say or do anything after the accident—he simply sat there.

He didn't ask if everyone was okay, didn't tell us what had happened, didn't tell us what would happen next or how long we'd be waiting, didn't check on the driver we rear-ended.

We just sat there for 10-15 minutes in silence.

The driver also didn't move out of traffic (which was not helped by the vehicle we hit, which didn't pull up much at all). The rear of the bus was sticking way out into the right lane, forcing rush-hour traffic to go into the left lane to get around us.

I was seated at the right rear of the bus and I was directly over the edge of the lane, so the whole left side of the bus was out in traffic.

I was really disappointed by all this—I have a much higher opinion of MetroBus than MetroRail, because the bus drivers seem to be so polite, there is some customer service, and things are much more efficient and clean. It really surprised me to see something potentially serious like this handled with such nonchalance.