T-D investigation: Bicyclist was no match for bus

By JOE MACENKA
Published: June 6, 2010

Bicyclist injured by a GRTC bus Jason Carty knows that the simple math doesn't add up in his favor.

Weighing 150 pounds, and riding a mountain bicycle that weighs just a few dozen pounds, Carty was no match for a 40,000-pound GRTC Transit System bus that hit him July 17, 2008, near Douglas Freeman High School in Henrico County.

"That's kind of like a bug on a steamroller's wheel," Carty recalled. "Do you think it's really going to notice?"

Carty remains thankful that the collision did not draw him under the wheels of the bus, instead tossing him clear. While the accident left him with significant injuries, he was able to recover after several months of physical therapy.

The accident that landed Carty in a hospital was the fourth in slightly more than 13 months for GRTC operator LaVonda D. Robinson.

All four accidents involved collisions on the right side of the buses she was driving. Two of those cases led to charges that ultimately were dismissed by judges in two localities who did not follow a Virginia law and allowed Robinson to use defensive-driving school as a means to keep her commercial driver's license record clean.

On June 4, 2007, at 6:23 p.m., Robinson had 14 passengers aboard her 2001 Gillig bus when she pulled out from a stop at Broad and Meadow streets in Richmond and struck a trailer attached to a pickup truck being used by a crew cutting grass nearby.

There were no injuries, but the accident report estimated damage at $4,500 to the trailer and $100 to the bus.

The GRTC supervisor's assessment that was included in the accident report said Robinson "wasn't focused on her surroundings when she was pulling off from the bus stop" and had misjudged the distance between the bus and trailer.

Robinson, charged with making an unsafe lane change, appeared two weeks later in Richmond General District Court, where she pleaded guilty. Judge Birdie H. Jamison accepted the plea and said there was sufficient evidence to convict Robinson, but she delayed the matter for three months to allow the driver to attend traffic school.

Robinson presented proof Sept. 25 that she had successfully completed the course, and Jamison signed an order the next day dismissing the charge.

On Nov. 11, 2007, at 5:55 p.m., Robinson was behind the wheel of a GRTC bus that struck a side-view mirror on a Mercedes sedan that was parked in a bus stop at Broad and Harrison streets in Richmond. No one was injured, and Robinson was not charged.

On March 14, 2008, at 1:08 p.m., Robinson was driving a GRTC bus that hit a light pole while making a turn at Fourth and Jackson streets in Richmond. No one was injured, and Robinson was not charged.

It was a different story on July 17, 2008, at 4:43 p.m. when Carty was riding his bicycle to the Tuckahoe Area Library, traveling west on Three Chopt Road through the Westbury Drive intersection.

Carty, initially thinking a car had struck him from behind, recalled that his first reaction was one of helplessness.

"It grabbed hold of my backpack and flipped me over the handlebars," he said.

It wasn't until later that Carty learned he had been struck by a 1998 Gillig bus driven by Robinson. The bus, he said, didn't stop at the scene, instead pulling over an undetermined distance down the road after some of the five passengers told Robinson she had hit a bicyclist.

Carty landed on the road and quickly tried to roll into the grass, away from traffic, before realizing he couldn't feel his left leg.

An ambulance crew strapped Carty to a backboard, put him in a neck brace and took him to Parham Doctors' Hospital, where he was treated for various abrasions and diagnosed with tendon, ligament and muscle damage to his left leg.

Carty, who said it took him about two months to regain full movement in the leg, underwent rehabilitation and has returned to his job as a martial-arts instructor.

Carty, 21 at the time of the accident and now 23, said he reached a financial settlement with GRTC. He would not disclose the details.

"I had a lawyer. They made an offer. He made a counteroffer. They settled," he said. "It was kind of a really open-and-shut case."

The GRTC accident report quotes a supervisor as saying that as the bus and the bicycle crossed the intersection, Robinson "did not move over very far, if at all, and contact was made between the bus and the cyclist near the rear of the bus."

Robinson, charged with failure to obey highway lane markings, went before Henrico General District Judge John Marshall on Aug. 7, 2008, and entered a guilty plea.

Marshall accepted the plea but allowed Robinson to enroll in traffic school. When Robinson returned on Oct. 31, 2008, and showed proof of having completed the course, the charge was dismissed.

John M. Lewis Jr., the agency's chief executive officer, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that Robinson was disciplined internally and remains on the job.

Attempts to contact Robinson for comment were unsuccessful.

The accident has changed Carty's perspective about riding bicycles while sharing the road with motor vehicles.

"To them, I'm a bug. I'm an insect," he said. "Cars and buses don't look out for bicycles.