Another impaired bus driver: TTC woes prove to be never-ending
With a youthful, beleaguered protagonist (Adam Giambrone), an impending “nothing” (Transit City) and a string of troublesome calamities that shows no signs of abating, the TTC’s troubles are seeming more and more like a Neverending Story. Now, add one more mishap to its ever-growing list of misfortunes: last night, a TTC operator was charged with driving his bus while impaired.
Witnesses alerted police Wednesday night when a TTC bus was seen driving erratically near Finch and Yonge. Toronto police pulled the bus over, issued a standard sobriety test to the driver and found enough evidence to charge him with impaired driving. He was released and is scheduled to appear in court on June 24.
For its part, the driver’s union says the man “was not impaired due to alcohol or illegal drugs” but was affected by doctor-prescribed medication. The driver, who was the only occupant of the bus, was apparently unaware that the medicine could cause impairment.
Still, it seems like nothing short of a luckdragon could chase away the TTC’s woes.
• TTC bus operator charged with impaired driving [Toronto Sun]
• TTC bus driver charged with impaired driving [Global]
shame on your magazine. i expect more from you. the impression one gets from the heading that the driver was drunk or high on illegal drugs. to drag a person through the mud belongs to less respected papers. you may edit or delete my comment entirely, but you should be aware that we expect better reporting from you.
To the above commenter: The article says nothing to imply that the drugs were illegal, in the heading or anywhere else. You jumped to that conclusion on your own. Anyways, whether the drugs were illegal or not is entirely beside the point. He was impaired while driving. He should not have been.
According to the Ministry of Transportation’s own website:
“Drugs and Driving
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Any drug that changes your mood, or the way you see and feel, will affect the way you drive. This is not only true for illegal drugs. There are prescription drugs and some over-the-counter drugs that can also impair your driving ability.”
Though the article did not mention any illicit drugs in the charges laid against the TTC operator, as per the MTO, even PRESCRIPTION DRUGS can cause impairment.