Bus driver who "murdered" snowman resigns

[Scooter]

URBANA, ILLINOIS A hapless bus driver in the US has resigned after his bus was videoed colliding with a 1.2 metre snowman standing in the road.

The hit-and-run was captured in the University of Illinois campus and posted on Youtube on Dec 4, along with the title “Insane Bus Driver Brutally Murders Snowman.”

In the video clip, a car carefully swerves the snow-clad obstacle on the icy road, whereas the public transit bus veers onto the wrong side of the road and annihilates the unwanted object. The video has been watched nearly 500,000 times since its release.

According to Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District spokeswoman Jan Kijowski, the driver has since resigned. She declined to say why.

After the video had been posted and spread on the website, it stirred a controversy over who is responsible—the bus driver or the person who deliberately made a snowman on the road.

The driver said he had seen two cars almost crash trying to avoid the icy impediment, and decided to get rid of it.

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Just about the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. A group of nitwits builds a snowman in the middle of the road, then creates videotape evidence of the hazard it is posing to passing traffic, and the bus driver who had the common sense to use the size of the vehicle he was driving to advantage in order to eliminate the hazard, has now been hounded into resigning from the ensuing "debate" about who is responsible.

The only guilty party or parties are those who decided to endanger lives by creating an obstacle in the middle of the road. I mean, they are even laughing at the fact that a bus is approaching as a car has to swerve into oncoming traffic to avoid the snowman.

They should all be arrested.

[Gob]

But, but, but...He killed Frosty!!!

Seriously, I don't think you'll get much disagreement on the above.

[Scooter]

Yeah, but some idiocies just deserve to be pointed out.

[BoSoxGal]

Those kids are assholes.

That bus driver should be reinstated, assuming he had no other legitimate reason to resign.

Bollocks! (thanks for the loan, Gob!)

[@meric@nwom@n]

Actually shouldn't the "kids" be charged with reckless endangerment or some sort?

[BoSoxGal]

Yes, they should be. I wonder if identifying them is an issue, however.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Good for the bus driver. I hope his boss throws out his resignation and makes him Bus Driver of the Month.

[Crackpot]

The only problem I see with his actions is the possiblitity that he would have been hitting something other than (hidden by) snow.

[Scooter]

In which case I would think better a bus than a passenger car, which would have stood more of a chance of damage and or injury to occupants.

Unless you are talking about a person who decided to play peekaboo behind the snowman, in which case, I would have had a reason to start posting at the Darwin Awards Forum again.

[Crackpot]

But you're also dealing with a bunch of unrestrained passengers

[Sean]

Yes, bus passengers heve been known to be quite rowdy...

[rubato]

A couple of drunk/stoned cretins put a snowman right in a traffic lane, film the results while cackling like chickens, and the bus driver loses his job?

Too fucked up.

yrs,
rubato

[BoSoxGal]

There is a Facebook page devoted to getting this guy his job back.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-the- ... 909?v=wall

The more I think about this, the angrier it makes me. This guy has lost his job just before the holidays - for what?!?!

He removed a hazard from the roadway. It doesn't appear from the video that he drove recklessly in so doing. He should have been commended, not forced to resign.

[Big RR]

The only problem I see with his actions is the possiblitity that he would have been hitting something other than (hidden by) snow.

That and the statement:

the public transit bus veers onto the wrong side of the road and annihilates the unwanted object

Why endanger your passengers and others by driving on the wrong side of the road to hit something?

[Rick]

The video...

[BoSoxGal]

If you watch the video, it's obvious that the bus driver can see far enough down the road to know he isn't endangering his passengers by veering into the other lane to 'plow' the snowman. He's also clearly traveling at a sensible rate of speed.

It's dark, likely very cold, thus the hardening snowman quickly becomes a true danger to motorists. Any vehicle smaller than a bus or commercial truck would have a hard time pushing it over. I guess the bus driver should have called it in, let police call in a plow, and got it done that way - but the way he chose to do it seems equally sensible.

I don't care if he enjoyed plowing it over; I'm sure at least part of his motivation was to prevent an accident and that's good enough for me.

[Jarlaxle]

The driver should be fired and should get a very large citation.

the public transit bus veers onto the wrong side of the road

No more need be said. Case closed. Fire him on the spot.

[Big RR]

I guess the bus driver should have called it in, let police call in a plow, and got it done that way - but the way he chose to do it seems equally sensible.

I disagree; I think that traveling on a winter, probably slippery/icy road, makes it very dangerous for a vehicle to swerve into the oncoming traffic, and I also think that a large vehicle like a bus could easily skid out of control if it hit a patch of ice while swerving. A bus driver has no business endangering the passengers on his or her bus by doing something potentially dangerous, even for a good reason, especially when he could have easily called it in and let those equipped to handle it do so (indeed, he didn't even know what it was-what if it had been built over a pile of large rocks, or a piece of rebar driven into the road?). I don't necessarily think (s)he should be fired, but a bit of education on what the responsibility owed to the passengers is would make a lot of sense.

[Scooter]

Why endanger your passengers and others by driving on the wrong side of the road to hit something?

In order to eradicate a traffic hazard which was causing vehicles travelling in the other direction to veer into the path of oncoming traffic in order to avoid it. Did you hear the kids at the beginning of the video as the car travelling in the blocked lane approaches the snowman - "there's a bus (giggle, giggle)" - which means that, in order to avoid the snowman, the car that veered around it put itself right in the path of the oncoming bus. The bus driver, seeing the way ahead clear in the oncoming lane, then uses the size and weight of his vehicle to demolish an obstacle that might, as bsg has already said, have posed a problem for a passenger vehicle that tried to do the same thing.

The road had been effectively reduced by the snowman's presence to one lane to serve traffic travelling in both directions. That didn't endanger anyone? A car had already swerved into the path of an oncoming bus in order to avoid hitting said snowman. That didn't endanger that driver and the passengers on the bus?

The bus driver performed a service for every vehicle travelling down the road that night. How anybody could be condemning him for that, well, I guess the holiday eggnog has been flowing generously in some folks' homes.

[Big RR]

And the bus driver knew what he was hitting? He was sure it posed no danger to his passengers when he swerved across the road and hit it? And what if it was snow over a pile of rocks or rebar, how could he know? Does he have a right to endanger his passengers to do something which, while important, should be handled by those best equipped to deal with the situation. Sure, nothing happened, but the point is that it could have, and IMHO, his actions were unnecessary as he easily could have called the police and gotten a plow (or a cop car) to knock it down. Yes it was a danger to others, but he had no right to endanger his passengers to remove it.

As for "condemning" him, I'm not sure what you mean. I already said that I didn't think he should be fired, but I will not celebrate his actions as heroic. If it was his own car or truck and the situation was the same, he could have done as he wished, but as a bus driver his first duty is to his passengers and he wrongly endangered them (even if only briefly). Maybe you should lay off the eggnog.