I need to start accelerating my amount of posts.
"MBTA driver allegedly hit parking officer with bus" by Brian Ballou |
Globe Staff, August 09, 2012
The Tinlinongtime parking enforcement officer tried twice to wave
veteran MBTA bus driver Lataria Milton out of the left turn lane at a
busy Kenmore Square intersection Thursday morning. But Milton defiantly
returned the hand gesture and continued eating a breakfast sandwich
inside the empty bus parked on Commonwealth Avenue, transportation
authorities said.
The officer wrote a $75 ticket, and when she tried to place it on the
windshield of the bus, Milton inexplicably hit the gas, authorities
said. The bus lunged forward and struck the officer, who managed to get
out of the way before the bus plowed into several vehicles waiting at a
traffic light....
The episode played out in the busy transportation hub around 8:15
a.m., as
the officer, driving a marked Boston Transportation Department van,
spotted Milton’s bus in the left-turn lane leading to Brookline Avenue,
officials said.
The officer pulled alongside the bus and waved at Milton to move
along. The driver waved back and stayed put. The officer waved a second
time, again to no avail. So the officer walked to the back of the bus to
write down the license number. As she was walking alongside the bus to
get the street address, Milton allegedly said, “Get out of my way; I’m
moving,” Tinlin said. The officer responded, “As soon as I’m done
writing the ticket,” Tinlin said.
Milton drove around the officer’s parked van and into the street,
stopping at a red light a few yards away, authorities said. The officer
got back in her van and drove up to the bus, got out, and went to the
windshield of the bus to attach the ticket. That is when Milton
allegedly hit the gas, striking the officer, and clipping her van in the
process.
Witnesses told police that after the bus hit the officer, it moved
slowly forward and pushed the car in front of it, a Subaru, into the
second car, a black BMW. The front end of the Subaru was damaged
extensively; the BMW was damaged in the rear. The bus was not visibly
damaged.
Milton has a three-page driving history that includes being found at
fault in a March 2010 crash in Roxbury and being required in 2007 to
complete the National Safety Council’s safety course for a chronic
highway violator, according to Registry of Motor Vehicles records.
Milton’s right to drive was suspended in August 2006 for repeated
violations, including operating an unregistered vehicle in 2004 and
failing to stop that same year, both times in Dorchester, the records
show. She was first ticketed in 2003 in South Boston, when she was
driving a car without a valid inspection sticker, records show.
At the time of Thursday’s crash, Milton’s license was active but in
nonrenewal status because of unpaid parking tickets, unpaid excise
taxes, and an unpaid toll. After her arrest, her license to operate a
car or bus was revoked by the Registry.
Several of Milton’s relatives said she had never been in trouble at
work, and they said that she would never deliberately attempt to hurt
someone.
“She’s a godly person and would never do anything to hurt anyone,’’
Lexi Milton, 17, the driver’s daughter, said, shaking her head.
Relatives said Milton devotes her time away from work to raising her family and church activities....
--more--"
Related: Bus driver on road to firing, source says
At least she will have more time for the family and church activities.
