The Globe reports.
Mike Mennonno isn't surprised:
Anyone who has ridden the T couldn't possibly be surprised that there's a party going on somewhere behind the scenes. I've been on some pretty bumpy rides over the years. It's all good fun until someone ends up with serious head injuries and facial lacerations, innit? So revelations that two recent incidents on the T involving injuries to passengers or passersby involved coked-up, drunk or drugged-out drivers only confirm suspicions, and further affirm the standards of service we've come to expect from the MBTA. ...
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Not the lead driver
By Allstonian
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 11:45am
The operator who tested positive for alcohol in the accident in which the BC student was hit WAS NOT THE DRIVER. It was the second-car operator. (Although I do have major concerns about an operator who tests positive for alcohol at 10 in the morning...)
Wait...
By Brett
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 12:02pm
So the drunk guy was on the train that hit the kid who ran in front of the train, not the one that rear-ended the other train?
Wow, things just keep getting better and better.
He wasn't "drunk", and I think he's getting a bad rap
By Ron Newman
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 12:36pm
It says:
Also, if he was the operator of the rear car, he had absolutely no control over the train and could not have seen the pedestrian. All he does is collect fares and open doors. I don't see how he deserves to be fired.
yeah, a bad rap for boozing at 10AM.
By Brett
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 1:02pm
I don't see how he deserves to be fired.
How about this, moron. Think real hard about what "alcohol in bloodstream DURING SHIFT" implies.
It implies that he was either drinking on the job (fired!)...or had been drinking right before his shift. Let's pretend he wasn't drinking on the job.
So. He was probably tested at least 30m to one hour after the kid was hit. Which means there's a good chance he was above the state limit at the time of the actual incident. Or, let's assume he was working the morning shift, which means he started around what, 5 or 6AM? So, how drunk do you think he was at 6AM, in order to be above the MBTA limit at 10-11AM?
Nevermind that he knew that the MBTA has its own limit, and he was above it. FIRED!
.02 is a very low level
By Ron Newman
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 1:16pm
Could it be residual from his having had a drink at say 11 pm the night before?
In any event, I don't see how he could possibly have been responsible for the (literally) senseless college student's death. Even the front driver probably wasn't responsible for it.
who said they were responsible?
By Brett
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 1:17pm
The issue is not whether they were responsible. The issue was that T employees were drunk or high on the job.
Could it be residual from his having had a drink at say 11 pm the night before?
Uh, no. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content
Even if you were right...too fucking bad! The dude knew the rules, he broke them. FIRED.
Was this the driver's regular shift?
By SwirlyGrrl
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 1:36pm
Say the driver got off work at 1am, went home, had a bunch to drink, rolled in to bed expecting to be off shift until the next afternoon, and then wound up getting called in for an early shift not knowing he was still technically over the limit?
That would make a case for leniency in my book, as the amount in question is not an impaired level and he had no responsibility for the accident. The T and other organizations set 0.02 as a limit to prevent multi-beer lunches and sipping from nip bottles while on duty.
Of course it is more likely that they found somebody with a more serious issue, by accident if you will. Whether firing that person is the right thing to do depends on the enforcement policies for that rule.
drunken conductors
By bostnkid
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 1:53pm
my grandfather worked for the T and back then(50's, 60's, 70's) a lot of guys were boozing on the job. more recently i have several friends that work for the T and the days of showing up half in the bag should be over.i believe that all T employees must present themselves to their supervisors before each shift begins.i think the rules say that they cannot have had any alcohol for twelve hours leading up to their shift.they started doing this 5-10 years ago.i had friends that used to drink right up until their shifts began back in the early 90's. these same guys, within a few years ,knocked it off because it was a fireable offense if alcohol was found in their systems.the people i am speaking of were bus drivers, im not sure if the greenline workers submit to the same procedures.
I was just going to say the
By AltarEgo
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 1:59pm
I was just going to say the same thing as above. My father was a bus driver for over 30 years and I just called him to get his take on this. He used to drink all the time during his break and he was saying how lucky he was that nothing bad ever happened. The T cracked down a while ago on their operators drinking and he said that no matter whether this guy was driving or not, he's still guilty of breaking the rules. Even if this wasn't his normal shift, there's no rule saying he had to take it if someone calls him in to work, they would just go to the next person on the list if he said no. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fired.
Death?
By Eighthman
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 2:04pm
According to the Globe, "None of the injuries was considered to be life-threatening."
my error, then
By Ron Newman
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 2:08pm
somehow I though the student had died. I'm glad to be wrong about that!
Just so you know, the
By anon
Sun, 11/23/2008 - 4:20pm
Just so you know, the injuries might not have killed the student, but he is still unconscious in the hospital and isn't waking up any time soon. He is critically and seriously injured, his family is a mess, and so is his supportive Boston College community. This wasn't a scratch or a broken arm. This was a real big accident. Those starting death rumors, saying that this was simply "natural selection" trying to pull through, and that Boston College students deserve this kind of treatment: please examine yourselves. How can you bear to write those kind of things? No matter what school this student goes to, how old he is, or anything else you can possibly dredge up, he is a person. A living, breathing person with a story, just like you. He deserves respect and well wishes, as does his family, and those involved on the MBTA side. Being a human means supporting other humans in their continued survival, not rooting for their demise.
He is a shame
By Kaz
Sun, 11/23/2008 - 7:16pm
You are correct: "this was a real(ly) big accident"...that he brought upon himself. Anyone saying things like "he's from BC so he deserves it" should be ignored. But that he deserves respect and well wishes for being a dumbass? No thanks, but he does get to be a shining example of how not to cross the T tracks. Everybody doesn't get a gold star in life just for showing up. I read that he plays sports. He probably understands that when he completely blows a play, he's not going to get a pat on the head by his coach just for trying.
Also, it would be nice to know where you get your information from. When he was taken away by ambulance, he was talking and conscious but you now claim he's "unconscious and isn't waking up any time soon". Is he in a medically-induced coma as he recovers from his injuries? Are you just looking to heighten pity/sympathy by claiming he's unconscious even though you have no better idea what his current medical condition is any more than the rest of us, which was last described by the hospital as "critical but stable"?
Michael Cordo may be a great guy who did a really stupid thing, but what he did was at such a base level of stupid (walking in front of a moving train with his music so loud he couldn't even hear/feel the air horn of the train going off??) that it's perfectly understandable if there are those of us who can only shrug and wonder how he got this far in life. The idiots who wish him dead are just that: idiots. But the rest of us are allowed to slap our foreheads and reserve our deepest concerns for those who didn't willfully put themselves into the hospital.
Policy is policy, but...
By Kaz
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 2:07pm
I agree that policy is policy and the "he wasn't driving" argument doesn't hold because they just left BC (end of the line) which means he actually *was* driving on the outbound trip only seconds before.
However, I'm pretty sure you can blow a 0.02 if you just went a little overboard on the Listerine in the morning. Does that mean T train operators shouldn't mouthwash with Listerine or something? Maybe so, again, policy *is* policy, but I'm just pointing out that 0.02 is more likely a "zero tolerance" based policy (it's often used as an "acceptable level" for under-21 drivers in the law, for example) and definitely not based on anything even close to concern about potential decision-making issues.
isn't BC terminal a loop?
By Ron Newman
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 2:10pm
I thought that trains looped at BC rather than changing ends. If so, the rear car remains the rear car when turning around.
Good point
By Kaz
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 2:31pm
I never looked on it from above before to know how much track was really back in there, but looking from satellite, it appears they have both possibilities (loop and switchback track). I know that they can also switchback at Washington St (although that's inconsequential to where the kid was hit).
In fact, if the kid had looked over his shoulder and saw no train at the BC station, but they were in the process of sending the train back out from the outbound line using the switch track, then it might explain why he thought he was safe walking as he was and then got hit.
In any case, people who do dirt should pay for it.
By independentminded
Mon, 11/24/2008 - 12:48pm
I blame the MBTA driver for driving while intoxicated. It's totally irresponsible, and he really should pay for it...with the loss of his job, because it resulted in the death of another human being.
but he wasn't driving the train
By Ron Newman
Mon, 11/24/2008 - 1:26pm
the operator of the second or third car of a Green Line train isn't "driving" the train.
Indeed
By stephencaldwell
Mon, 11/24/2008 - 2:19pm
And he isn't dead yet.
He still broke the rules and
By anon
Sat, 11/22/2008 - 12:27am
He still broke the rules and deserves to be punished. I hear they are sending them all to the penal colony in Somerville to work in the Ikea mines.
Other D Line Crash
By GradStudent
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 12:07pm
So was there any update on causes of the fatal crash near Woodland long long ago?
last I heard
By Brett
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 12:50pm
...they'd ruled out everything ranging from train mechanicals to signal and visibility problems. They also said that she was "not on her phone", but I'd be willing to bet anything that she was playing a game or texting someone. It was a straight section of track and the green line trains blink their lights (I believe) when stopped. She either committed suicide, fell asleep, or wasn't looking where the train was going.
Anyone else find it interesting that with all these security cameras popping up, none of them are aimed at the people causing the most trouble, ie, T employees?
Anyone else find it interesting that after all these accidents, we still don't have automated transit systems? Japan's subway and trains are run so well that if the train is late, you can get a slip to give to your boss! I remember years ago reading about how the automated speed control systems even resulted in energy savings and more comfortable rides.
The MBTA: safety is our number one priority, except for our drunk, high, or texting drivers!
I'll see your bet
By SwirlyGrrl
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 12:55pm
And raise you a "diabetes gone out of control" conjecture.
Something about her father tracking her down to bring her a proper lunch at a specific time ...
Any other speculations? Always fun to collect the set, absent other evidence.
probably not diabetes
By Ron Newman
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 1:01pm
They did a blood test on her and didn't find any drugs or alcohol. If her blood sugar or insulin level was abnormal, I think they would have detected that.
Would they?
By adamg
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 1:09pm
If you're testing specifically for foreign substances, would the tests show blood-sugar levels?
Wouldn't report it, actually
By SwirlyGrrl
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 1:21pm
They may have tested blood sugar (it would be a separate test, but simple) but there are numerous gory details of how death, time after death and manner of death affects apparent readings that might interfere with interpretation.
Insulin is tricky, as Type II diabetics lack the receptors to use it effectively - they don't lack insulin.
That said, it likely wouldn't be reported unless it was a definitive finding, because it is a medical issue and, therefore, private unless there is some overarching reason to release it.
Maybe her father
By Michael
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 1:17pm
...was a big fan of that line from "Charlie on the MTA".
Dad was certainly loving and supportive
By SwirlyGrrl
Fri, 11/21/2008 - 1:21pm
That may be the only reason. I found it to be touching that he would bring her lunch, yet interesting from what I know from having lived with and working around people with diabetes.