A scooter rider who says he bought a helmet-mounted camera to document the hostility shown to two-wheeled vehicles on the streets of Vancouver captured some hair-raising footage of himself getting sideswiped by a TransLink bus.
Mark Jarder, 23, says he was turning left onto Cambie Street at a yellow light around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday when an eastbound 99 B-Line bus thundered through the intersection and hit the back of his scooter, sending him flying several meters.
It is unclear whether the articulated bus entered the intersection after the light turned red, but at the 1:03 mark of the video he uploaded to YouTube Thursday the red light is clearly visible.
“I’m more than lucky – it was a miracle – I’m blessed that I’m alive!” the Energex employee and part-time photographer said. “It’s not even as if I was a split second late.
“The whole thing happen in under a second.”
His video ends with several bystanders urging him to remain calm as paramedics arrive.
He said Thursday that the crash has left him unable to sneeze, cough or laugh without shooting pain to his abdomen. He said he also has a sore neck and road rash to his forearm and right shoulder blade, and is going to the doctor for an examination on Friday.
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His scooter, worth about $2,000, was destroyed.
He says he has sent the video to the VPD and will be filing a complaint. He said he has also filed a claim with ICBC and reported the incident to TransLink.
A VPD spokesman was unavailable for comment Thursday night.
TransLink spokesman Derek Zabel said its accident adjudicators are investigating the incident and the company is reviewing video footage from the bus’ cameras. The driver has not been penalized because the investigation is still ongoing Zabel said.
TransLink’s drivers are held to a higher standard that may mean in-house penalties even if ICBC doesn’t find a driver liable for an accident, he added.
“We’ve got procedures that we follow, just like any large company that has a large unionized workforce,” Zabel said.
If a driver is found to have run a red and has no previous record, then they would be taken out for a day of training, which would include going back through the same intersection, Zabel said.
He said that TransLink recorded 775 accidents involving its buses last year.
“A lot of them are minor in nature, like mirror clips,” Zabel said. “We count any sort of collision an accident and we take a look at them.”
Jarder had bought the GoPro the day before after repeated close calls on his scooter and witnessing what he says is clear disdain many Vancouver motorists have for motorcyclists, scooter riders and cyclists.
With the onset of riding season, Jarder said he hopes his video will act as a cautionary tale to all bus drivers to slow down and drive more defensively.
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