The issue of road safety has again raised its head in the wake of the death of a seven-year-old girl who was struck by a city bus that careened off the street and plowed into a group of children waiting outside a primary school.
The accident, which occurred several weeks ago in front of the Escuela Urbana 945 in the Lomas de Paraiso neighborhood of Guadalajara, has rekindled hostility toward the metro area’s failing bus system, bus operators and their drivers. The tragedy has also highlighted the difficulties the Jalisco state government is facing in its efforts to modernize the bus transportation network and bring it up to First World standards.
Perla Vianey was killed instantly when the driver of a 258A bus mounted the sidewalk outside the school as dusk fell on November 10. Another young girl, Yadira Michel, was seriously injured and had her leg amputated. Doctors say she is in a stable condition in the Hospital Civil.
According to some witnesses, the bus driver, Arturo Javier Gallardo Padilla, was forced to swerve after a child crossed his path and was unable to control his vehicle. Nonetheless, investigators determined he was driving well above the designated speed limit for outside a school or educational institution – 30 kilometers an hour.
Gallardo Padilla was detained and is awaiting trial in the Puente Grande penitentiary.
Only after a week and some sustained pressure from the Guadalajara media did the company that operated the bus, the Alianza de Camioneros, agree to pay the funeral costs of Perla Vianey, as well as compensation for her death.
On November 18, the parents of Perla received a check for 336,450 pesos, as well as another two for 31,500 pesos to cover her burial expenses. The Alianza de Camioneros also agreed to pay for Yaridia’s medical bills but staff at the Hospital Civil this week said the outstanding debt of around 90,000 pesos is still unpaid and that the bus company has not contacted them.
The amount of compensation was questioned by Universidad de Guadalajara (UdG) Rector Tonatuih Bravo, who said by law (Article 159 of the Reglamento de la Ley de Movilidad y Transporte del Estado) it should come to a total of 1,682,250 pesos. He criticized the state government for agreeing to the figure “too hastily” and being too cozy with the bus concession.
This week, Edith Rivera, head of Public Transport at Jalisco’s Transportation Department (Semov), suggested that the Alianza de Camioneros had only agreed to pay compensation because of the public outcry.
“It seems it took media pressure for the bus company to react,” she told reporters this week, adding that bus operators had obligations to compensate victims in all accidents, not just those in which a person dies.
Rivera said the law needs to be tightened to ensure that victims and families of victims get the compensation they deserve and that the bus concessionaires are unable to wriggle out of any obligations they have.
In the aftermath of the death of Perla Vianey, the UdG’s student union, the Federación de Estudiantes Universitarios (FEU), proposed the creation of a special Victims Attention Unit (Unidad de Víctimas) to provide legal and psychological support to families of persons killed in such incidents. The unit would be supported by the university and the Movimiento por la Paz con Justicia y Dignidad, headed by poet Javier Sicilia.
The FEU created a watchdog commission, the Observatorio Ciudadano de Movilidad, to maintain vigilance on the city’s bus system and operators after an 18-year-old UdG student was killed by a wayward bus on the sidewalk outside a city high school last May.