Kee-RASH!

Similar to 102 bus.

Perhaps 25 years ago I had the most horrendous accident I ever had driving bus.
I clobbered a Chevrolet Citation turning left in front of me.
Totaled the car, and knocked out the driver.
We rode up on adjacent lawn, and took out a power-pole.—Broke it like a matchstick.
The Citation crushed around the pole such that it was utterly bent out of shape.
The grille insert of a Citation is plastic. It broke off and flew under a large spruce tree.
I still have it in my basement.
I went back and got it the next day.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove bus for Regional Transit. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.
I was on my second trip with good old 1703; three trips out East Ave. to Pittsford — one of my all-time favorite rides.
My second trip was when I took home the good burghers that lived in Pittsford, yet worked downtown.
This included a regular named Wendell (“WEN-dull”) who worked at RG&E, and “Ted,” who had worked for years at Chase Bank.
Although when he started it was Lincoln-Alliance, then Lincoln-Rochester, then Lincoln-First, and finally Chase.
There were others I’m sure, with Wendell holding court in the back discussing politics, probably George Herbert Walker Bush.
I was eastbound, accelerating away from the Penfield Road light.
I was approaching cruising speed, about 30 mph.
I had 102 bus, a Grumman-Flxible (pictured above), fairly pleasant, but large.
Ours were the wide-bodies, 102 inches. Standard width was 96 inches, eight feet.
They were fairly new. Worn-out buses weren’t assigned to East Ave.
I was in the right-most lane of four (two eastbound), being passed by a large Domine Builder Supply (“DOM-ih-nay;” as in “wand”) truck loaded with cinder-blocks.
I was approaching a Catholic Church driveway to my right.
With Domine passed, the oncoming Citation suddenly arrowed in front of me, aimed at the Catholic Church driveway.
BAM! It sounded like hitting a 55-gallon drum.
The driver apparently never even saw me. He just turned when Domine cleared.
It was so sudden I couldn’t even react.
How can anyone not see a bus?
Kids used buses as snowball targets because they’re so big.
At least the Citation wrapped around the power-pole behind the door-post.
It was a two-door sedan.
It didn’t do much damage to the bus — too much momentum.
Just caved in the lower right front about a foot. —The front doors couldn’t work.
Call the ambulance. My passengers were more worried about me. They all knew me by name.
No one on the bus was injured, including me.
“Call the ambulance” gets the head-honcho of Transit on-scene, plus a phalanx of minions.
Usually an accident this serious got the bus-driver fired, his fault or not.
The Domine driver had disappeared, but apparently stopped on return.
He told my bosses there was nothing I could do — I was entirely blameless.
Later I went to Domine to find that driver; he had saved my job.
I never found him. I had to leave a message.
My reaction to the crash was I was glad I was driving bus, and not my motorcycle.

• “Regional Transit” is Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs.
• “East Ave” is a main street east out of downtown Rochester. “Pittsford” is an old ritzy suburb southeast of Rochester.
• “RG&E” is Rochester Gas & Electric, the local public power utility.
• “Penfield Road” is the road out to Penfield, a suburb east of Rochester (north of Pittsford). It starts northeast from East Ave.