RTD Denver – What kind of drivers do you hire?
Over the last 6 days I had quite a few encounters with RTD Denver buses / bus drivers and I am shocked a little bit. What kind of drivers is RTD Denver hiring lately? Friday, December 4th in the afternoon we were driving Eastbound on Highlands Ranch Parkway. We just passed the Town Center when an RTD Bus pulled out of Blake Dr. making a right turn onto Highlands Ranch Parkway – effectively forcing 6 or 7 cars to hit the brakes hard to avoid a collision. For one the bus driver did make a right turn while having a red light (which is legal in Colorado as long as he would not affect traffic) and second the driver did not stay in the far right lane, no he pulled across all 3 lanes into the far left lane to make a left turn into S. Ridgeline Blvd. just one block east.
One of the cars being cut off honked the horn. Apparently the bus driver assumed that was me and when I was standing next to him at the red light that he had, he showed me the middle finger – repeatedly. I took a picture with my cell phone, but unfortunately the camera and the angle did not work out very well. Anyway, I am really shocked about this rude behavior of this RTD bus driver. You do not pull into traffic this way and then show the middle finger to the people you just cut off. The picture was taken in the morning on 12/4/2009 (Bus #2160).
Today, December 8th I was driving westbound on Highlands Ranch Parkway (near town center again) at around 7.50 AM. It was snowy and icy and the road conditions were just simply dangerous. Another RTD bus drove in the middle of 2 lanes blocking both and then stopped at a red light (Lucent & Highlands Ranch) – still blocking both westbound lanes. Some cars decided to pick the right half of the right lane to drive and to pass the bus – even though that looked pretty dangerous. Well, the bus driver apparently did not notice the road conditions (or decided to ignore them) and sped away with his bus. From Lucent & Highlands Ranch going westbound to Highlands Ranch & Wildcat Reserve Pkwy it goes down hill for about 2/3 of a mile and I would assume that the bus easily went 50 mph on that stretch trying to race a car on the right lane.
Unless it was the same driver in both cases, I am shocked about this. Shouldn’t public transportation be safe? Shouldn’t bus drivers drive in a less aggressive way? I would not want to be a passenger in one of those buses and I could not imagine having children aboard a bus where the bus driver first cuts off several cars and then instead of apologizing shows the middle finger to “express” his “feelings”. RTD Denver – please hire better drivers.
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