Captured on video: Renton residents say Metro drivers are reckless
May 17, 2017, 3:21 PM | Updated: 3:23 pm
For years a Renton resident has been sending the Dori Monson Show video clips of buses blowing through red lights. Some of the videos show the lights turning red before the bus enters the intersection.
We recently found out that over the past five years, King County Metro has settled 39 claims that involve injuries or deaths. Metro has paid about $38 million in these settlements.
Director of Public Safety Grantley Martelly said Metro is working to end all accidents and it already has a “good safety culture,” which he admits could improve.
But one of the people who lives near an intersection where buses notoriously speed through red lights says otherwise.
“Basically, at about 10-to-15 minute intervals, they blow by the house,” Steve Boden tells the show. “If the light is at all yellow, [the bus drivers] ramp it up so they can make the light.”
Boden says the buses are going well over the 25 mph speed limit. He says the articulated buses bounce down the street so violently that he can’t keep the pictures hanging on his walls straight.
Boden and other neighbors have talked to the city and Metro about the issue, but he believes it’s just being ignored.
“They need to hold drivers accountable,” he said. “If they held them accountable, I don’t believe there would be a problem.”
Now, he says they are just waiting for something tragic to happen.
Listen to the entire conversation below.