UCSF to Add Seat Belts after Fatal Shuttle Accident
Belts are not required by law in vehicles that meet the definition of a bus
The University of California, San Francisco, on Wednesday announced new safety measures in the wake of last week's shuttle bus crash that killed psychiatrist Kevin Mack.
In addition to holding one-on-one meetings with drivers and creating a "How am I driving" hotline, the university will begin adding seat belts to its shuttles in the coming weeks, with the goal of outfitting its entire fleet by the end of August.
"Seat belts are not required on the type of shuttle vehicles we use in our fleet, but we want to make them available to you," Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann said in a statement.
As The Bay Citizen reported, Mack was not wearing a seat belt when the shuttle bus he was riding in collided with a big rig at the corner of Oak and Octavia streets — ejecting him from the vehicle — because none of UCSF's 15-passenger shuttles have them.
Under California law, vehicles that meet the definition of a bus, meaning they carry more than 10 people for profit or for a nonprofit organization, are not required to have seat belts.
But riding in small vehicles without a safety belt poses inherent risks.
"Buses are so much bigger and have more weight and are less likely to have their passengers sustain serious injuries or damage," said Lorrie Walker, technical advisor to the Washington-based nonprofit SafeKids. "But you don't have that with these little jitneys that are just slightly larger than a car."
UCSF also announced Wednesday it is launching a comprehensive review of its shuttle operations, and Desmond-Hellmann pledged to provide ongoing, detailed updates.
Mack was an associate professor of psychiatry at UCSF and worked in San Francisco General Hospital's psychiatric emergency room. According to the school, he was an expert in bipolar and psychotic disorders.
He left behind a husband and two young children — a fact that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) pointed out in a press conference Wednesday in support of legislation she introduced to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman.
Mack's family members "now, because of DOMA, essentially lose rights that would have been given to a straight family," Feinstein said in a statement.
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voltairesmistress
Seat belts seem beside the point. UCSF needs to reinvent its training program for drivers. It also needs reevaluate how it chooses and then reviews its drivers. Time and again I have seen the shuttle drivers speeding, running lights, and driving in the early morning hours without their headlights on.
Although one could blame individual drivers for these lapses, to me it seems more a problem of poor management. These drivers do not seem well trained in safely operating their vehicles. There seems to be no oversight once they hit the road. How many more pedestrians and passengers have to die or be seriously injured before UCSF revamps its shuttle operations?