The Massachusetts Court of Appeals today ordered a new trial to determine how much the MBTA owes a woman who suffered serious neck injuries when Green Line operator Aiden Quinn plowed through a red light and crashed into another trolley in 2009, saying her lawyer manipulated the jury's emotions by repeatedly raising issues not supported by any evidence during the trial.
The Salem News reports on the suit filed yesterday by Samantha Mattei, who suffered a broken back and a concussion when Quinn he crashed his Green Line trolley into a stopped trolley because he was too busy texting to notice it.
Mattei filed her suit the same day the National Transportation Safety Board released its final report on the 2009 crash, basically concluding that texting trolley driver was texting. However, the board also said the accident could have been avoided if the T had an automated system to stop trolleys that go through red signals, like the ones in place on the T's other lines.
In the aftermath of the crash, which did an estimated $10 million in damage, the T banned cell-phone use by train drivers and other employees.
The trolley hit by train operated by Aiden Quinn. Photo by NTSB.
Operators of three of the four trolleys involved in a major trolley smashup just past Government Center on May 8, 2009, described chaos and panic among passengers in the moments after the collision, in interview transcripts released today by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Doug discusses the way Green Line driver Aiden Quinn was charged under a law dealing with railroads rather than trolleys and says that, unlike state trolley law, state railroad law requires train operators to let riders bring bicycles onboard:
... [U]ltimately if the District Attorney succeeds in sending Quinn to prison for three years (instead of to jail for 2 1/2) for crashing a railroad train (and not a trolley), then the T should get ready to welcome bicycles and their riders on that same line. Because that's the law!
Aiden Quinn, the Green Line driver who plowed into another trolley while texting his girlfriend on May 8, was indicted by a Suffolk County grand jury today, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office announced.
Quinn faces up to three years in prison for the May 8 incident, which sent 49 people to the hospital and cost him his job.
Union calls the ban "profoundly unfair", Channel 4 reports. Also unfair, the union says: Always blaming drivers for crashes and not installing fail-safe mechanisms to prevent crashes (such as ones caused by drivers not paying attention because they're on their cell phones?).
Oh, and Aiden Quinn is now officially an ex-MBTA employee.
One guess what has the Mass. Transgender Political Coalition all riled up - especially about the particularly sucky ABC News.
The Salem Evening News interviews two local women who were on the texting trolley - one of whom suffered a broken back and a concussion and was transported to the hospital in the same ambulance as driver Aiden Quinn:
The trolley lights "just like blinked, and I was on the ground," said Mattei, who spoke haltingly, sometimes having trouble finding the right words or getting the words out.
Channel 5's TV coverage of the latest on Friday's T collision has a handy graphic recreating the collision but only on their website do they provide more interesting facts about the driver...like the fact that he was born a woman.
Not only was he texting, he ran a red light.
DICTATORIAL MODERATOR'S NOTE: No more discussions about seeing evil in the eyes of people in MySpace photos. It's gotten to that "Oh, Jesus H. Christ enough already" stage and I'll be deleting further replies on that specific topic.
The Globe identifies the texting trolley driver as Aiden Quinn, 24, of Attleboro. On his MySpace page (now deleted, but you know how Google Cache is), he said he's originally from Quincy and wrote:
I'm a chill, hardworking and down to earth guy. I believe there is a lesson to be learned in everything, and everything happens for a reason. I'm very spirtitual, but not religous. Just trying to get myself grounded. I know who I am and what I want from life. There is alot to be said of the life of others, I try to take in a little bit of everything from all the cultures. Just trying to keep the positive influnces in my life, and cut off the rest.
Among his favorite movies: Crash.
NECN breaks the news with a tweet.
The Globe has more details, says he was texting his girlfriend:
MBTA General Manager Dan Grabauskas said it was difficult "to contain my outrage" at the driver's action ...
NECN reports he was texting her because he couldn't get her on his cell phone while driving the train.
You may recall how T management made a big deal of telling train drivers to stay off the phone after last year's fatal Riverside crash (for which cell phone use was eventually ruled out as a cause).
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