Woman outraged with operator’s response after bus crashed into parked car

RNZ

8 Nov, 2023 12:33 AM3 mins to read

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By Tessa Guest of RNZ

A Wellington woman whose parked car was crashed into by a bus, resulting in the vehicle being written off, is furious at the response she got from the bus company.

Early this year, Laura Nalder arrived home in Churton Park to find her car on the footpath, the back corner crushed in and with yellow paint visible.

Her neighbour had seen the whole incident.

“Our car was parked on the street outside our house. A bus accidentally turned into a small side road around the corner, and then when it realised it had made a mistake, backed out of that side road into our car, and then immediately drove off,” Nalder said.

The car, which had been her grandmother’s, was written off.

“It was pretty heavily damaged, and they cannot possibly have not noticed it happened.”

Nalder is one of 88 people in Wellington whose parked cars were hit by buses in the past nine months.

Tramways Union secretary and Wellington bus driver Kevin O’Sullivan said the numbers were no surprise, with drivers having near misses every day.

People have taken to social media to voice similar concerns.

“There’s just so many things going on. If you ride a bus and stand there by the front you’ll see for yourself, there’s a lot going on.”

What has come as a surprise to car owners is the fraught process of getting someone to take responsibility.

Nalder called Metlink, which runs the bus service, but it referred her to Tranzurban, which operates the buses.

It did not want to talk to her.

“They were annoyed that I’d got in touch with them, and I was pretty unimpressed that that was their response when I called them,” Nalder said.

“It was like, ‘how did you get this number, why are you calling us?’”

After an email exchange, she sensed it was a losing battle and gave up on the $500 of insurance excess she was owed.

Similar experiences have been aired on social media, with people complaining about poor customer service and slow responses, including one person who said it took two months to get a payout.

Laura Nalder's car was written off from the crash.

Tranzurban and Wellington’s other main operator Kinetic both declined to be interviewed.

In a statement, Kinetic said the process for dealing with buses hitting parked cars was clear.

“Accidents are recorded on a third-party Accident Recording Card and attached to the damaged vehicle if no one is in it. The Kinetic operations control centre is then immediately advised, and a motor vehicle accident form is completed on return to depot which then commences the insurance process.”

Tranzurban said its response was equally thorough.

“We have a robust internal process for reporting incidents and accidents involving Tranzurban services.

“Tranzurban arranges repairs for vehicle damage confirmed through our insurance provider, who liaises with the other party and their repairer.”

But crash data from this year has found that some bus drivers left notes, some took down details, and other collisions - like Laura Nalder’s - went completely unreported until car owners got in touch.

- RNZ