Hawaii: Shuttle Bus Driver Confuses Gas for Brake, Kills One and Injures 10

It’s really easy to confuse the gas for the brake, especially since every vehicle puts them in different places.

For years, I’ve been calling for a standardization, saying that vehicle manufacturers should decide if they want the gas on the left or the right, but they won’t do it.

Complicating the issue further, some vehicles have two gas pedals, and the break is a nob on the dashboard. It’s easy to confuse it with the radio nobs. In the new Kias, the only way to brake the vehicle is to push a button on the inside of the seatbelt.

It’s a wonder everyone doesn’t die in a shuttlebus crash.

New York Post:

One person was killed and multiple others injured Friday when a shuttle bus driver in Hawaii mistook the gas pedal for the brake — plowing into nearly a dozen people waiting at a cruise terminal.

The 57-year-old driver had just dropped off a group of passengers at Honolulu’s Pier 2 terminal around 10:30 a.m. and had exited the bus when a bystander warned him that the car was rolling forward, the city’s police said.

The driver jumped back in the shuttle, but in the frenzy “pressed the gas pedal instead of the brakes and collided with two concrete barriers and eleven pedestrians.”

A 68-year-old woman was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and later succumbed to her injuries.

Four others — in their 50s and 60s — were hospitalized in serious condition, while a man in his 70s was listed as stable.

Elvis Dunderhoff contributed to this article.