San Francisco Muni Driver Appears to Fall Asleep, Takes a Turn at 50 MPH, Tells Passengers to Relax – Jalopnik

Recently, video surfaced of an incident in which a San Francisco Muni train driver appears to doze off while the train is moving, until she is jolted awake by the train entering a curve at 50 miles per hour, or about five times the speed at which the train normally travels. Fortunately, the driver was able to slow the speeding train and commuters on Wednesday morning experienced only jostling, with some falling due to the sudden movement according to ABC News And the San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Authority (SFMTA). The incident took place on Wednesday, September 24, just after 8:30 am.

As the train exited a tunnel at 50 miles per hour, it hit a curve that woke the engineer and crowded the passengers in the crowded train car before careening past the Duboce Park Muni stop and hitting another curve at too high a speed. What appears to be a black BMW narrowly avoided colliding with the speeding train before it finally came to a stop.

The video footage shows the driver standing up and talking to the passengers after the train finally comes to a stop. She tells the passengers that the train would not stop, and she repeatedly tells them to relax. A SFMTA investigation found that the train was not defective and that the incident was due to operator fatigue. Reporting by NBC Bay Area discovered that the driver in question had logged 58 hours in the two weeks prior to the incident, and that the driver remains on ‘non-driving status’.

This happened on the Muni N-Judah train, a two-car train heading toward downtown San Francisco on Wednesday morning. SFMTA said Muni light rail trains usually travel at 8 to 10 mph, so this train was traveling nearly five times normal speed. SFMTA Director Julie Kirschbaum said in a statement: “Safety is always our top priority. We are committed to accountability in response to this specific unacceptable incident and we are taking all necessary steps to keep Muni safe and reliable for all riders and the public.”