Mom of UConn Student Killed by Bus Says Not Enough Done

The mother of UConn student who was killed four years ago by a transit bus on campus says the school has not done enough since then to improve pedestrian safety and wants it to stop using students as bus drivers.

Linda Plamondon's 20-year-old son, David, was struck and killed by a bus while in a crosswalk at a major campus intersection — Hillside Road and Alumni Drive — at about 8 p.m. on March 22, 2011.

The driver, Lukasz Gilewski, who was a 21-year-old student at the time, pleaded no contest to a charge of negligent homicide with a motor vehicle and served two years of probation.

Plamondon, who received $5.5 million in a 2013 civil settlement with the school, has begun pushing for a comprehensive investigation of UConn's transportation system. Among other things, she wants the school to install cameras in the buses to monitor drivers, and to ban students from driving the buses.

She spoke to state lawmakers this week about the possibility of bringing legislation, though no bills have yet been drafted.

"These are not professional drivers," Plamondon said. "Their focus is not driving a bus. They are thinking about the party tonight or the exam tomorrow."

Plamondon addressed an informational forum held to discuss the school's new master plan on Thursday. She spoke in favor of closing Hillside Road to all vehicular traffic including shuttle buses; replacing some four-way stops with traffic lights and adding pedestrian bridges and tunnels across heavily trafficked areas.

Laura Cruickshank, the university master planner and chief architect, said getting traffic out of the center of campus is a top priority of the 20-year plan.

"Our long-term goal is to get the buses to go completely around Hillside," she said.

UConn records show there were nine accidents involving transit buses on campus in 2014, though none involved any injuries. David Plamondon's death is the only one recorded in the history of the UConn bus system.

UConn spokeswoman Stephanie Reitz defended the use of student drivers. She said they undergo at least 30 hours of training and must get a commercial driver's license. They also must be at least 18, have no moving violations, have at least two years of driving experience, and undergo background checks.

"There is no guarantee that a contractor from a company outside of UConn is going to be better trained or older," Reitz said. After the accident, changes were made, including the installation of an auditory warning system that lets pedestrians know when a bus is turning a corner, she said. The system was not available at the time of Plamondon's accident.

Reitz said the school does not believe adding cameras would provide any additional safety.

"The standards for safety equipment on buses are national standards," Reitz said. "The safety technology on UConn buses meets, and in some cases exceed, all applicable standards."

Plamondon said the warning system puts the onus for safety on the pedestrian instead of the bus driver.

The American Public Transport Association said there have been no comprehensive studies of the driving records of students in university transit systems. Spokeswoman Virginia Miller said the latest data, from 2008, showed 50 percent of schools responding to a survey said they used students as drivers, and 65 percent of those actively recruited students.

The National Highway Transportation Administration, which keeps statistics on bus accidents, said it also has no data on how many accidents involve drivers who are students.

Gilewski has since moved from Connecticut, and attempts to reach him this week failed. He has no listed phone number.

Taylor Libby, 28, of Canton, drove a UConn transit bus from 2006 to 2008, while she was a student at the school. She said it was a challenge to navigate what is basically a small city with a lot of pedestrians and "students parking wherever they want to."

But she said her training was more rigorous than that of her father-in-law, who is a municipal bus driver, and she said the school was very selective and weeded out anyone who might not be mature enough for the job.

"There are hazards, but it has nothing to do with who is driving the bus, in my opinion," she said. "There are just hazards of driving in an area with that many people."

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