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Bus driver faces felony charge for allegedly running into city parking supervisor

MiltonAn MBTA bus driver is scheduled for arraignment in Roxbury District Court tomorrow on a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon after she allegedly ran down a Boston parking supervisor trying to give her a parking ticket in Kenmore Square this morning.

Lataria Milton, 34, eating breakfast at the time, at first responded to a request by a BTD supervisor that she move her bus out of a no-standing zone in Kenmore Square by ignoring her, officials say. When the supervisor began writing a ticket, Milton stepped on the bus's accelerator, hitting the supervisor and causing a chain-reaction crash that left four cars damaged.

WCVB reports Milton has a lengthy record of driving infractions in her off hours.

Innocent, etc.

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Comments

Dont mess with her breakfast?

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We should have the parking enforcement officers tackle the rat problem - everbody wins!

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Driver'd probably be dead.

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Not to nitpick, but a shod foot is also a "dangerous weapon".... Shouldn't a freaking 40 foot bus be a deadly weapon?

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They are armed with a bus and a License to Kill Union Card. She'll just claim the bus went "out of control" into the Meter Maid like that "accident" in Dudley Square when the driver pinned the perp that punched him against a wall.

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I was riding my bike and attacked by two off-duty MBTA bus drivers who didn't like me trying to take a picture of their license plate (the driver tried to brake-check me.)

One of them hit me with a glass bottle; the other tried to kick me, but I managed to block the attack with my bag. While I tried a second time to get a picture of their plate, the driver got back in and nearly hit me backing up and peeling out.

There was a witness who saw the whole thing, but when it came before the magistrate, the MBTA driver told a radically different story and swore up and down that she'd NEVER break the law, because she's worked for the MBTA for several decades and GOSH they're just the pinnacle of law-abidedness.

The magistrate dismissed the case immediately - even when I pointed out that there was a witness who would back me, and prove she was lying to a magistrate. He didn't care.

The detective shrugged and said "that's how it goes."

Couple of weeks later I'm on my bike standing at the edge of the curb outside a bus stop checking my phone, and I look over my shoulder to see a 39 bus flying at me. He passes with less than a foot to spare- clearly buzzing me - on his way into the spot.

Want to read more about aggressive MBTA drivers? Google "grimlocke mbta" and you can read about her getting buzzed (and hit by!) mbta bus drivers over in Cambridge/Somerville...

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I can't tell you the number of times, even in this era of the Comm Ave bike lane, when the drivers of the 57 line have tried to deliberately run me off the road. Then there's the one driver who got on her buses PA to yell at me while we were all moving at a reasonable speed because she could not get around me [to pull over at a bus stop 10 feet later].

Easily the most bike unfriendly bus line in the city.

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The bus lane should be on the left, as it is along the comm ave mall.

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if, by "Comm. Ave. mall", you mean between Arlington Street and Charlesgate. No buses travel on this part of Comm. Ave.

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Changes to local roads in the last 10-20 years have all been made to make driving more irritating and stress-inducing to drivers - thus resulting in unhealthy mental and physical effects. What has been promoted as healthy for cyclists and walkers actually reduces overall health when all people are considered.

MBTA drivers in particular have to deal with ever more frustrating driving and micro management 8 hours every work day. Why should the outcome be any different than what happened under similar conditions at the US Postal Service with some "going postal"?

Its long overdue that wrong-headed changes to roads to make them more stressful and unhealthy for the majority who drive, which includes public transit drivers. All the stop and go also makes roads more polluting. Meanwhile pedestrians or cyclists waiting their turn produces zero extra pollution.

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I mean, she or he probably made you follow the rules to, and wait your damn turn, whether you like it or not.

Driving in this area is already frustrating - measures to make the streets safer for those who don't insist on bringing two tons of personal property around with them doesn't change that. Making the roads such that you can't misbehave by making your own passing lane or roaring around people stopped for croswalks doesn't change that.

I'm sorry if follwing the rules and having to share the road with other users makes you feel less of a special snowflake.

Move to Texas, please.

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Execution. Do it in Faneuil Hall and let the rest of her union watch.

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it is just such a shame that this is the standard by which the MBTA and their operators abide by. But it happens all the time and blows my mind. It seems that no one in that agency likes to follow any kind of rules!!

It is common fact MBTA trolley's & buses don't obey the rules of the road. For example (one of many in this city) Just watch daily as the E trolley's blow thru the yellow/red (um that train can barely make it thru on a green, how the hell does it think it will get thru on a yellow??) at the S.Huntington/Huntington/Rt. 9 intersection every.single.time, getting stuck in the intersection and blocking traffic. And y'day (yet again) a T supervisor SUV was parked just before a bus stop (kudos to him for not parking *in* the bus stop) on Huntington in front of the Harvard Public Health building, prohibiting the 39 to pull into the open bus stop which backed up traffic in the travel lane. So unnecessary
Disgusted but not surprised at all.....

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When a bus is ticketed who is responsible for paying the ticket. The T or the driver. I'd guess it's the T.

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As a general rule, municipalities cannot regulate instrumentalities of the Commonwealth (remember all those UHub discussions about the city not being able to force the state to shovel its properties in the winter?). I believe there are some limited statutory exceptions to this rule (whereby the Commonwealth "consents" to play by the municipality's rules), but I can't remember if any of them apply to this scenario. So the kind of sad thing here is that the question might not be "who pays" but rather, "did all of this happen in connection with a ticket that might not have been valid in the first place?"

This is not to say that T buses and other state things get to run roughshod over everything municipal (the T undoubtedly has a policy in place that says that drivers must obey all local traffic ordinances, and the driver will undoubtedly take a hit as result of this even if the criminal case falters). It's just that as a matter of law, the ticket might not be valid if there isn't an exception.

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Exactly. It might not have any effect on the MBTA or city revenue generation (er, I mean ticketing office)...but I would hope the MBTA would have a way of annotating the driver's work file based on the time and license plate info when they were either given the ticket by the driver or sent a reminder to pay in the mail later by the city.

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The only plates that are exempt from parking violations in Boston are blue municipal plates, state plates, and government plates. Every MBTA vehicle is registered and is paid a fee by the MBTA (at a different rate probably).

I know Boston unmarked police vehicles that get tickets in other cities have to pay those fines. MBTA plates are regular plates for the most part and they should be responsible for the violations.

(I'm 90% sure of the above)

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But if that is the case, and I will take your word for it for now, my point was that it is the case only because of a statutory exemption or agreement between the T and City (which each has been statutorily authorized to enter into). On a related note, I can easily envision a situation where BTD officers are directed to issue tickets to all license plates except certain kinds (so as to remove as much discretion as possible from individual officers) regardless of whether as a legal matter those tickets will be valid or not.

As for unmarked Boston Police vehicles getting valid tickets in other jurisdictions, that is a different matter entirely. There is no (law-based) reason that municipally-owned vehicles of one municipality would be treated any differently than privately-owned when visiting other municipalities (matters of comity aside). Municipalities are at the same level of government. The issue I was raising was that of "regulating up" (municipality to state level), which is, as I said, generally prohibited.

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If the City of Cambridge mayor parked illegally in Boston with a vehicle that has blue municipal plates, BTD officers legally cannot do anything about that vehicle (except tow in an emergency)

The general state parking statue (I don't remember it now) has these things outlined (municipal plates cannot get tickets in other municipalities)

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That's a good question and I'd be curious too. I hope the driver is held responsible! - Mea www.hertrainstories.blogspot.com

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Remember with all these bus driver comments, their salaries start in the mid-50s with no college degree!! Take that liberal arts majors!

Ohh to be in a union.

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The Herald has the story a little differently which doesn't necessarily put all the blame on the bus driver. I would be interested in finding out what those surveillance videos show.

When the supervisor began writing the ticket, Tinlin said the bus driver “poked her head out the window and said, ‘I’ll move, I’ll move,’ but the ticket already was being written. She backed the bus up on Commonwealth Avenue and drove around the enforcement van.”

The supervisor, he said, was prepared to mail the T driver a “drive-away” ticket, but she caught up to her at a red light and stepped out of her department minivan to affix the parking ticket to the bus windshield. That’s when the bus surged forward and hit the supervisor, Tinlin said.

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