Death, Maiming, Money, and Muni

As paramedics rushed Landsverk to San Francisco General Hospital, where she fought for her life, Beattie told a police officer, "I was making a left turn. All of a sudden this lady ran in front of the bus." Based on Beattie's statement, the cop wrote into his report that Landsverk had crossed the street outside the crosswalk -- in other words, that she was a jaywalker. The police did not interview eyewitnesses to the initial strike. But Puente testified that a passer-by told her Landsverk had been inside the crosswalk.

Doctors treated Landsverk for three broken ribs; a bruised lung; a punctured diaphragm; a lacerated liver; wounded intestines; a busted spleen; nerve damage in her legs and urethral sphincter muscle; a tear in her vagina, which had been separated from her abdominal wall; a shattered, free-floating pelvis; a degloved (skinned) left arm; deep abrasions on her legs; a large chunk of flesh torn out of her groin; and a broken pinkie finger.

In a deposition given a few months later to Landsverk's attorney, Mary Alexander, Beattie changed the story he told the police, saying he never saw Landsverk until he heard "a human cry." Parsing his words, he seemed to try to disassociate himself from a bus that had acted badly on its own volition.

Beattie: It appeared that the bus had some kind of contact with the pedestrian ....

Alexander: [Did] the bus run over the person?

Beattie: I determined that there was an injured person.

Alexander: When did you decide that your bus had run over this person?

Beattie: I never came to that decision or conclusion.

Alexander: As you sit here today, have you come to the conclusion that your bus ran over the person?

Beattie: I came to the conclusion that it was involved in an incident.

Beattie decided that he could not have seen Landsverk run in front of the bus because "[t]hat entire front end is a blind spot." He said that drivers often discussed among themselves how the blind spots made it impossible to see pedestrians. "We [also] informed the training department that there are blind spots all over."

Alexander: You understand that as a bus driver you are supposed to yield to pedestrians?

Beattie: Yes.

Alexander: Pedestrians have the right of way; is that correct?

Beattie: At some times.

Alexander: What times do pedestrians not have the right of way?

Beattie: Jaywalking ....

Alexander: Are you supposed to yield to a pedestrian if they're jaywalking?

Beattie: You can. It depends on the situation ....

Alexander: Your goal is not to hit a pedestrian even if they're jaywalking; is that correct?

Beattie: Correct.

Alexander then read out loud the instructions from the Muni Operators Training Guidebook requiring bus drivers to make sure pedestrians see the bus and to yield to pedestrians, even when they "make foolish moves." The guidebook notes that buses have blind spots on the right and left sides; to avoid creaming pedestrians in the blind spots, operators are to drive very slowly when turning or moving through a crowded area, and to maintain a four-foot "space cushion" of clearance on the curb side.

Landsverk, who has recovered from her injuries and recently graduated from law school, says she is not angry with Beattie. "But," she says with emotion, "he should have seen me. It could have been prevented."

Muni saw the matter differently, listing the Landsverk accident as "unavoidable," meaning that Beattie was not at fault. But the driver could have been an unsympathetic figure in court, Alexander says, not least because of his apparent lack of concern about the results of his actions. In his deposition nearly a year after the accident, Beattie testified that he did not know whether Landsverk was alive or dead.

"I just say a little prayer that she's okay," he said.

Shortly after Beattie testified, the City Attorney's Office agreed to settle the case for $4 million, a Muni record to this day.

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In September 1997, the National Transportation Safety Board severely criticized Muni's driver safety practices and called for a reform of Muni's entire management, maintenance, and operations structure. In 1999, auditors from the California Public Utilities Commission found that Muni did not have adequate safety procedures, and that the safety rules it did have were not being followed. The auditors found that a significant cross-section of train operators generally did not understand the meaning of the flashing lights that regulate train speed. The auditors also reported that Muni's accident rate exceeded the rate for all other transit agencies under its jurisdiction, including Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Diego.

Proposition E, passed by voters in November 1999, restructured the governing board of Muni and called for safety improvements. Mayor Willie Brown increased the agency's budget by $100 million. But the core safety problems remain unresolved. Those problems relate to the quality of Muni drivers hired, the overworking of drivers, and an absurdly lax disciplinary process for drivers involved in accidents.