After crash, MA transit chief to ban operators from bringing cell phones on buses and trains

Source: Los Angeles Times

The head of the Boston-area transit authority said Saturday he'll ban all train and bus operators from even carrying cell phones on board after a conductor told police he was texting his girlfriend before a trolley collision Friday.

*******

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority already bans operators from using cell phones and recently ran an internal ad campaign featuring a poster of an open cell phone that warned employees not to drive "under the influence."

But general manager Daniel Grabauskas said Saturday the temptation obviously was too great for some.

"I want to remove any temptation by one or two people stupid enough to think a moment of convenience is worth the lives of the people they're transporting," he said. "I'm not going to wait for someone to die to institute a policy whose time I think has come."

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/sns-ap-us-trolley-crash,0,5381374.story?track=rss

---

Hurrah for Daniel Grabauskas, and wish authorities in other cities would follow suit.

I see a lot of people doing this crossing the street - paying no attention to traffic, other pedestrians, you name it. It's illegal in cars here (Washington) not, but that doesn't stop people from doing it.

I'm just glad no one was killed this time. How selfish can you get?

of being addicted to texting. A couple of weeks ago a woman from Washington (?) was in court for causing a fatal traffic accident while she was texting and driving. The scary thing was that she'd been spotted TWICE by highway patrol driving and texting in the months after the accident. Luckily it seems that Boston authorities are going to do something before someone dies on their public transit from this stupidity.

If they haven't started a study yet, this will probably trigger one.

It's gotten absolutely ridiculous. Texting and looking stuff up on the Internet via the mobile. A very good friend of mine has that addiction. We can't get through a conversation without at least one episode of Blackberry internet browsing - there's no such thing as "I'll check the name of that book when I get home" or "I don't recall the exact ingredients for that recipe" anymore. She just whips out the device before the words have finished dropping from my lips. She also sends notes to herself (the name of a book we're discussing, etc).

She's a good friend, but sometimes I just want to smack that thing out of her hands. On the upside, she never takes or makes a call or checks her messages.

Disclaimer: I have one and I use it a lot.

Would text while driving. That is just insane. Let alone drive a train even after all the other accidents prior to this one. The first time I heard of the accident I thought about texting. Then I thought no not again. Who would be stupid enough. :banghead:

This BS has to stop.