DART BUS HITS BOY ON BIKE

A Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority bus hit a boy on his bike on Sixth Avenue Tuesday night.

Police said the 13-year-old boy, who has not been identified, was thrown several feet from his bike and suffered a broken leg and facial abrasions but no life-threatening injuries. He was taken to Mercy Medical Center, police said.

The DART bus was traveling south on Sixth Avenue and had a green light at the intersection with Forest Avenue when it hit the boy shortly before 9 p.m., police said.

The boy rode his bicycle across the intersection without stopping, police said.

The driver, Donna Ritchie, was not cited. She has worked for DART for three years and has 18 years of commercial driving experience, DART spokesman Gunnar Olson said. Ritchie has no major accidents on her record, he said.

Des Moines police are investigating the accident. The bus had a camera on board that may show what happened, Olson said.

DART put several new safety initiatives in place following a series of recent accidents involving pedestrians.

A pedestrian was hit by a bus turning left in downtown Des Moines in July. The incident was the seventh involving a DART bus and pedestrian in two years.

Some of the bus-pedestrian incidents have led to lawsuits. Last week, a jury found a pedestrian mostly to blame for a July 2007 accident that left him with lifelong injuries.

Last month, a blind pedestrian sued DART for injuries suffered in a 2008 bus crash, claiming the driver had worked an unsafe number of hours in the days before the accident.