To Avoid Pedestrians, Des Moines Buses Honk

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MADELEINE BRAND, host:

This next story features something that annoys many of you, especially if you're in the car. It's a story about honking.

(Soundbite of honking)

BRAND: There it is. Downtown Des Moines, Iowa, where these days you're likely to hear a lot of honking around intersections not by cars though that's a bus whose driver has been ordered to honk when making any turn. It's part of an effort in Des Moines and some other cities to cut down on bus collisions with pedestrians.

Iowa Public Radio's Joyce Russell has our story.

JOYCE RUSSELL: One day last spring, 28-year-old Tiffany Schmit(ph) was crossing the street in downtown Des Moines. Approaching from the opposite direction was a bus with the Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority, or DART.

Ms. TIFFANY SCHMIT: And as I got, maybe, close to midway across the street, a bus started to turn left. I thought he was going to stop.

RUSSELL: But the driver didn't stop. Schmit was struck by the bus, but sustained only minor injuries. Now, several lawsuits are underway after seven bus-pedestrian collisions in Des Moines over the last two years, which all had something in common: each bus was turning left. So now, those buses honk as they turn, not a rude big city laying-on at the horn.

(Soundbite of honking)

RUSSELL: More of a little beep-beep to get your attention. And there's more: since all of the accidents involved left turns, left turns are now banned across much of downtown. That's reminding some of a widely circulated story about the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who reportedly once ordered his driver to make no left turns after a left turn accident. DART General Manager Brad Miller says after seven accidents, the transit system had to do something.

Mr. BRAD MILLER (General Manager, DART): That's what led us, finally, to eliminate left turns in the core of downtown Des Moines. It's really a stopgap solution while we look at how we can permanently change our routes.

RUSSELL: Bus riders are giving the changes mixed reviews.

Mr. STACY HOPKINS(ph): I don't see Des Moines as being an unsafe city. I think something's not right here.

RUSSELL: Fifty three year old Stacy Hopkins is waiting for a bus downtown.

Mr. HOPKINS: The first day that I came downtown, everybody was a little bit put aback by the fact that all of the sudden, they were headed straight when they should have been going left.

RUSSELL: And Hopkins says he's noticed it's noisier downtown with the extra horns going off. But the honking really irritates Tiffany Schmit.

Ms. SCHMIT: Honking at a pedestrian isn't going to make you see the pedestrian. And all it mean is that a pedestrian has to run out of the way from a DART bus.

RUSSELL: The DART officials say if a horn can alert the person in the street and possibly avoid a collision, so much the better, whether or not the driver is in the wrong. A few other city bus systems have taken similar steps, including those in Cleveland and Champagne-Urbana, Illinois, where pedestrians were killed in bus accidents. And it turns out the cities are not alone. Those familiar brown UPS trucks, all 90,000 of them - UPS says its routes are now computerized to avoid left turns whenever possible. That's in part to prevent burning gas while waiting to turn left, but it's also for safety. Virginia Miller at the American Public Transportation Association says research has long shown that turning left is risky for pedestrians and vehicles alike.

Ms. VIRGINIA MILLER (Senior Manager, Media Relations, American Public Transportation Association): Left-hand turns are one of the main, if not the main, cause of accidents in intersections. So when a person can avoid a left-hand turn, that's a good thing.

RUSSELL: Meanwhile, DART has adopted dozens of other new safety procedures and officials say the number of total bus accidents is down. As the new rules went into effect though, the transit company settled one lawsuit from a pedestrian struck by a bus for than $2 million.

For NPR News, I'm Joyce Russell.

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