Among the generalities that govern our lives, we are little beyond the sum of our experiences. How one understands the motorcoach industry has a lot to do with what one experienced along the way. Because my transportation industry background began with transit and paratransit service, I have a somewhat different slant on the importance of certain system design and operating principles. Among them is my preoccupation with the importance of precision and virtuosity.
While definitions vary, one can define virtuosity as the articulation of a task with precision. The value of virtuosity lies beyond minimizing liability exposure. Of equal importance is the fact that good drivers respect the insistence on virtuosity and the pursuit of excellence, and enjoy being part of them. In paratransit service, virtuosity often revolves around a tight, efficient, orderly and realistic schedule. In motorcoach operations, it often focuses on the concern for and articulation of helpful and trouble-free transitions to and from the vehicle.
In the provision of most services, one cannot get carried away with an endless obsession for detail. One must pick and choose his or her obsessions carefully. As safety and liability go, one of the most critical aspects of precision in public transportation service is where the driver stops his vehicle to board and alight passengers.
In coursing through the hundreds of lawsuits I have been involved in, practically one sixth of them involved either management's negligence in selecting the stop or a driver's failure to precisely adhere to it. As examples:
Where the passengers were not killed outright, mutilated or transformed instantly into quadriplegics, they suffered just so many broken ankles, legs, knees and hips – often deteriorating into a slow, painful death. With older passengers, broken hips are often a death sentence: Particularly for individuals with diabetes and/or undergoing dialysis treatment, the risk of infection is great with or without surgery. As a liability matter, elderly victims dying a slow, painful death are far more costly than those simply killed. But this dynamic is far more severe when a relatively young accident victim is integrated into the ranks of the Permanently Disabled and faces a life time of around-the-clock nursing care.
In the provision of public transportation, there is no such thing as an easy button. Operating a bus or motorcoach is arguably more challenging than operating an aircraft. But a principal risk of both is landing.
Much of the precision needed while driving is obvious: Stay on your own side of the road, manage the space around your vehicle to the degree possible, get a good night's sleep, and pay attention to everything around you at all times. Compared to these tasks, pulling into the bus stop is child's play. Yet the number of incidents that occur when stops are not executed properly is vastly disproportionate to the comparative degree of difficulty.
Unlike the easy button, there actually is a do-over button. It is called a law suit. Unfortunately, the individuals participating in it have to relive the incident pretty much the way it happened, despite efforts to spin the nuances. While the importance of doing many or most things properly and prudently can mean a lot, the devil is in the details, as they say. Placing a single, tiny error in the perspective of a well-run and well-intended system goes only so far. The jury needs little time to understand the importance of the specific errors or omissions that led to an incident, no matter how minor they may be in perspective. A single mistake can outweigh a bundle of good intentions and a celebration of excellence.
If there were any real truth in advertising, someone's slogan would surely be, “We get the phone.” We have never heard or read such a claim because no modern American company is willing to make a commitment to anything like this.
By comparison, even when a transportation agency or company overtly promises nothing in terms of safety, it is almost always held to the standard of a “common carrier” – effectively the highest duty and standard of care. When a driver fails to plant his vehicle at point X – something the most inept juror-motorist can do on a bad hair day – excuses and alibis fall upon deaf ears.
As in most efforts and activities, some aspects of providing transportation have to be executed exactly as proscribed. Apart from the obvious carnage to the victims, the perpetrators often pay dearly – sometimes with their businesses. But almost always with a lifetime's profusion of what-if memories.
Most good bus drivers care about the importance of details, and are proud to be cogs in the intricate wheels of a complex transportation system whose service is delivered with a visible degree of virtuosity. But this responsibility must be conveyed, monitored, evaluated, supervised and enforced. When it is not, the message sent is that the importance of details is marginal. As we well know, it is hardly marginal to an accident victim or his or her attorney.