New video released from a front-facing dashboard camera shows what the bus driver and passengers experienced leading up to the ValleyRide crash that decimated the Idaho Power parking lot Monday.
The driver, Fatangia Moala, 59, has pleaded not guilty to negligent driving — a violation of Boise city code. The misdemeanor carries a maximum penalty of a $300 fine and up to six months in jail.
According to a crash report from the Idaho Transportation Department, the ValleyRide bus was traveling north on South 13th Street shortly before 6:30 a.m. when, at Grove Street, it swerved to the right to avoid a pickup truck ahead of it. The bus jumped a curb and crashed through at least one traffic sign post, five trees and two light poles in the Idaho Power parking lot. The bus then continued across Main Street and came to a abrupt stop after it slammed into a pillar at the base of the nine-story office building. A passenger’s $400 Schwinn bicycle attached to the front of the bus was also damaged.
Luckily only nine people including the driver were aboard at the time of the incident. One woman, Kathleen Livingston, 45, who was seated in the first seat on the right side of the bus, was taken to the hospital with an injury to her lower back, according to the ITD report.
Moala told police at the scene that the brakes failed, but the investigation turned up no sign of brake failure. Idaho State Police, the agency that reviewed the crash, found that telemetry showed the brakes weren’t even applied, and gained speed by over 4 MPH during the crash.
The 27-second video from the ValleyRide camera initiates with the bus approaching the pickup truck. As it swerves into the parking lot, a voice apparently Moala’s, according to the ITD report, shouts, “Oh s–t! Oh s–t!”
There were as many as six cameras on the bus, but ValleyRide officials refused to release all of the video, claiming privacy law prevented them from providing video that showed the bus’ passengers during the accident.
An investigator who reviewed the full video from the bus said in the crash report that the bus driver appeared to be very tired and closed his eyes for short periods of time before the crash.
“It also appeared that the driver had nodded off while going north on 13th from the time he passed across Front until right before he came upon the pickup truck in front of him,” the investigator wrote in the ITD report.
Without access to more of ValleyRide’s video, it wasn’t possible Monday to independently verify the investigator’s claims.
Moala was charged about two weeks after the crash. His next court date, a pretrial, is 9:45 a.m. Feb. 24 and a jury trial has been set for March 20.
Read the full story at Idaho Statesman