Metro's accident record: 275 injuries on buses over 10 years
Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify the actions of Don Williams and Adam McMillan.
Don Williams was the fourth person killed in a Metro bus accident in the last decade.
But he’s among 275 people injured during that time, an Enquirer analysis of federal transportation data shows.
The family of Williams – who died Tuesday night in what police said was an impaired state after he fell while running aside a moving bus in Westwood – believes Metro’s driver was negligent.
The family of Beverly Kinney believes the same about the driver who hit and killed her in Hyde Park in January. He should not have been behind the wheel given his driving record, they say in a lawsuit against Metro's owner, the Southwest Regional Transit Authority.
Metro's accident rate is lower than bus systems in Columbus and Cleveland, and six other cities Metro considers its peers, the federal data shows.
But while the data is silent on the question of negligence, it does reveal what events led to injury or death and points to fault.
SORTA reports 275 injuries in 264 bus incidents
SORTA reported 313 “safety and security major events” to the Federal Transit Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation from 2014 through this February.
Regular Metro buses, currently numbering 307, were involved in 264 of those. Of the balance:
12 incidents with 11 injuries happened on Access buses for people with disabilities.
36 incidents, with six injuries, happened on streetcars. SORTA operated what is now the Cincinnati Connector streetcar from its inception in September 2016 through the end of 2019, when the city took over operations.
The data show that 275 people were injured in the 264 bus incidents.
Three of the 275 were killed:
In this year’s case, police reported that Beverly Kinney was in the crosswalk, walking with the light, when hit. The wrongful death lawsuit, filed by the family of the retired school teacher June 10, is not yet scheduled for trial.
In January 2016, a Metro bus hit and killed jewelry retailer Stephen Frank as he crossed a Hyde Park street with his daughter, Emily Frank. Metro later paid the Frank estate $10 million to settle a lawsuit that noted the driver who hit the Franks was distracted as he dropped his Wendy’s chili cup into a trash can.
In 2020, police determined that Hamilton County Sheriff Cpl. Adam McMillan was killed that October after he ran a red light in Anderson Township and a hit a bus.
The death of Williams, who owned a cleaning business and was living in Columbus, is not included in the data.
Injured persons get less attention
The accidents that took the lives of Frank, McMillan, Kinney and Williams made headlines across Greater Cincinnati.
People injured by buses often get much less attention, with SORTA, like other U.S. bus operators, providing only skeletal information for the federal data set. That's even the case when incidents involve multiple people or dramatic events:
In March 2014, the transit agency reported that four passengers and one driver of another vehicle were injured when “unit 1 pulled from stop sign into path of unit 2.”
In May 2015, it said 15 passengers, a bus driver and the driver of another vehicle were injured when a bus traveling through Evanston went through a flashing red light and caused a collision.
In March 2020, it said a bus driver, four passengers and three drivers in other vehicles were injured when stalled traffic on Interstate 471 caused a pileup.
In 2014, SORTA reported that a passenger was hurt when a bus hit a fire hydrant in North Fairmount. In 2023, it reported that a passenger got glass in his eye when a bus shattered a window on a construction sign in East Price Hill. The same year, it reported that two bus drivers were assaulted by passengers, one in Spring Grove Village, another in Over-the-Rhine.
The 14 pedestrians hurt by Metro buses over the last decade are likewise anonymized in the federal data.
Pedestrians who died of their injuries – Frank, Kinney and now Williams – became known because of news coverage. So too did pedestrians Emily Frank, injured in the 2016 accident that took her father's life, and Sally Gaynor, hit in a downtown crosswalk in October 2017.
Nine other people harmed by buses are identified only by gender and age range, summarized in this chart.
Driver training is ‘robust,’ Metro says
In a six-page response to Enquirer questions about the federal data, Metro said it compares well on safety to transit agencies of similar size serving populations close to that of Cincinnati.
In a statement, it said:
Metro reported fewer incidents and injuries from 2014 to this February than bus operators in Columbus and Cleveland, plus those in Kansas City, St. Louis, Detroit, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh and Jacksonville.
During the same time period and compared to the same peer group, Metro ranked first in both the number of miles its bus operators drove between collisions and between incidents with injuries.
Metro remained No. 1 compared to peers in 2023 for miles between collisions and injuries.
Metro also noted that it promotes safe practices for drivers, who tallied 13 million miles last year. “Metro operators regularly undergo robust training courses,” the statement said.
In the Williams case, Metro put driver Briana Huff, 30, on paid leave to complete an internal investigation of last week’s accident.
Cincinnati police suspect Williams had alcohol and marijuana in his system when the bus Huff was driving hit and killed him, according to a police traffic crash report. The right rear wheels of the bus ran over Williams after he fell while chasing it, the report said.
Database includes 90,000-plus entries
The federal safety and security major events database includes more than 90,000 entries from bus and rail operators across the country. The bus data comes from urban agencies with more than 30 vehicles in service.
Here is how SORTA’s reports for bus incidents compare to others:
Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority: 960 major events.
Central Ohio Transit Authority: 453 incidents.
Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority: 91 reports.
Indianapolis Public Transportation Corp.: 771 events.
Transit Authority of River City in Louisville: 331 reports.
Lexington Transit Authority: 115 incidents.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: How many people are hurt or killed by Metro buses?
