Light Rail Collision Nets Bus Driver a Ticket for Running Red Light

Contrary to speculation in several media outlets, including ABC-15 News (KNXV) and the Arizona Republic, the driver of a bus that hit a light rail train yesterday did not have a green light, police said. The Orbit bus driver received a citation today for running a red light at Lemon...

By Ray Stern

February 11, 2009

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Contrary to speculation in several media outlets, including ABC-15 News (KNXV) and the Arizona Republic, the driver of a bus that hit a light rail train yesterday did not have a green light, police said.

The Orbit bus driver received a citation today for running a red light at Lemon and Terrace streets in Tempe, writes Tempe police spokeswoman in a news release. That seems to jibe with an account by a student quoted in the Arizona State University Web Devil, who alleged the driver was making a call at the time of the accident.

That's bad news for the driver, but good news for motorists who wondered -- after reading media reports of this collision -- whether to trust green lights near the light rail trains.

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.