Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

The squeezed turn from Aero to Murphy Canyon Dr.

Disenfranchised bus passenger

The bus and the white van that tried to squeeze a right turn in ahead of the bus
The bus and the white van that tried to squeeze a right turn in ahead of the bus

During our conversation about potholes (see “What It Takes to Fill a Pothole” on August 10), Misty Haskins expressed what struck me as an exaggerated worry about her safety on the buses she rides. She hadn’t yet told me about the bus/van collision she was in nearly two months ago.

Shattered window. “The doctor pulled small pieces of glass out of my eyes.”

On June 25, as the MTS 928 bus she was riding on Aero Drive approached her destination, she noticed that a large white van was trying to squeeze a right turn in ahead of the bus as it began the same turn onto Murphy Canyon Drive. The two vehicles had, in fact, already made enough contact that a window on the right side of the bus was cracking.

“It didn’t seem like our driver was paying it any attention,” Haskins tells me. “So I yelled at her that we were having an accident.”

Sponsored
Sponsored

The bus continued to turn. “The driver could have made a wider turn. Instead, she made a very tight turn without looking in the right side rear view mirror,” says Haskins.

During the turn, the vehicles collided more forcefully, and the cracked window threw tiny shards of glass into the carrier’s interior. The van, meanwhile, was pushed onto the sidewalk. Both vehicles had by now come to a stop.

During the jolt and chaos inside the bus, Haskins hit her head and became distraught. She says she started crying but that she tried to console the driver, highly upset.

Besides Haskins, who had been sitting on the left side four seats behind the driver, there were two other passengers. They sat “somewhere” behind me, she says.

Soon enough, an MTS supervisor, a safety officer from Transdev (the company that runs Route 928 for MTS) and two police officers arrived. One of the policemen took from Haskins a statement about what happened and wrote it up in his notes.

“I asked him who was at fault,” she says, “and he said, too quickly I thought, that the van driver was on drugs and was the one. But I believe both drivers were at fault.”

Haskins says the MTS supervisor then drove her to a rendezvous she had already scheduled a block away with a jobs rehabilitation counselor. “I couldn’t even fill out the paperwork I was so shook up, so the lady did it for me. Then she drove me to my doctor.”

The following day, Haskins’s eyes hurt badly and had become red. So she made an appointment to see the doctor again. “I didn’t want to go blind,” she said. “The doctor finally pulled a bunch of small pieces of glass out of my eyes.”

Since the accident, Haskins has been trying to get the police incident report to see who was determined to be at fault. At the main police station on Broadway, “the lady behind the desk pulled the file out and was about to give it to me. Then she said I couldn’t have it because my name did not appear in the report. But she did tell me that the name of the officer who wrote it was Belanger and that I could reach him at the Mid-City station and ask that he put my information in the report.”

Haskins attends computer classes next door to the Mid-City station and has tried to reach officer Belanger repeatedly over the last eight weeks. But the station has often had a sign in front saying it was “closed to customers.” Sometimes, automated phone messages stated that its staff was short-handed. “And I’m real tired,” says Haskins, “of hearing ‘the phones are down.’”

But the day after Haskins left one more message, on Monday, August 20, for Belanger’s supervisor, an officer Poten returned her call. The lady “promised,” says Haskins, “that my name would be on the report the following day.”

(By the close of this story, an MTS representative promising what information he could get about the bus collision had not been received.)

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Temperature inversions bring smoggy weather, "ankle biters" still biting

Near-new moon will lead to a dark Halloween
The bus and the white van that tried to squeeze a right turn in ahead of the bus
The bus and the white van that tried to squeeze a right turn in ahead of the bus

During our conversation about potholes (see “What It Takes to Fill a Pothole” on August 10), Misty Haskins expressed what struck me as an exaggerated worry about her safety on the buses she rides. She hadn’t yet told me about the bus/van collision she was in nearly two months ago.

Shattered window. “The doctor pulled small pieces of glass out of my eyes.”

On June 25, as the MTS 928 bus she was riding on Aero Drive approached her destination, she noticed that a large white van was trying to squeeze a right turn in ahead of the bus as it began the same turn onto Murphy Canyon Drive. The two vehicles had, in fact, already made enough contact that a window on the right side of the bus was cracking.

“It didn’t seem like our driver was paying it any attention,” Haskins tells me. “So I yelled at her that we were having an accident.”

Sponsored
Sponsored

The bus continued to turn. “The driver could have made a wider turn. Instead, she made a very tight turn without looking in the right side rear view mirror,” says Haskins.

During the turn, the vehicles collided more forcefully, and the cracked window threw tiny shards of glass into the carrier’s interior. The van, meanwhile, was pushed onto the sidewalk. Both vehicles had by now come to a stop.

During the jolt and chaos inside the bus, Haskins hit her head and became distraught. She says she started crying but that she tried to console the driver, highly upset.

Besides Haskins, who had been sitting on the left side four seats behind the driver, there were two other passengers. They sat “somewhere” behind me, she says.

Soon enough, an MTS supervisor, a safety officer from Transdev (the company that runs Route 928 for MTS) and two police officers arrived. One of the policemen took from Haskins a statement about what happened and wrote it up in his notes.

“I asked him who was at fault,” she says, “and he said, too quickly I thought, that the van driver was on drugs and was the one. But I believe both drivers were at fault.”

Haskins says the MTS supervisor then drove her to a rendezvous she had already scheduled a block away with a jobs rehabilitation counselor. “I couldn’t even fill out the paperwork I was so shook up, so the lady did it for me. Then she drove me to my doctor.”

The following day, Haskins’s eyes hurt badly and had become red. So she made an appointment to see the doctor again. “I didn’t want to go blind,” she said. “The doctor finally pulled a bunch of small pieces of glass out of my eyes.”

Since the accident, Haskins has been trying to get the police incident report to see who was determined to be at fault. At the main police station on Broadway, “the lady behind the desk pulled the file out and was about to give it to me. Then she said I couldn’t have it because my name did not appear in the report. But she did tell me that the name of the officer who wrote it was Belanger and that I could reach him at the Mid-City station and ask that he put my information in the report.”

Haskins attends computer classes next door to the Mid-City station and has tried to reach officer Belanger repeatedly over the last eight weeks. But the station has often had a sign in front saying it was “closed to customers.” Sometimes, automated phone messages stated that its staff was short-handed. “And I’m real tired,” says Haskins, “of hearing ‘the phones are down.’”

But the day after Haskins left one more message, on Monday, August 20, for Belanger’s supervisor, an officer Poten returned her call. The lady “promised,” says Haskins, “that my name would be on the report the following day.”

(By the close of this story, an MTS representative promising what information he could get about the bus collision had not been received.)

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Temperature inversions bring smoggy weather, "ankle biters" still biting

Near-new moon will lead to a dark Halloween
Next Article

Wild Wild Wets, Todo Mundo, Creepy Creeps, Laura Cantrell, Graham Nancarrow

Rock, Latin reggae, and country music in Little Italy, Oceanside, Carlsbad, Harbor Island
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader