Red Deer Transit praised one of its drivers for his handling of a collision that sent an Action Bus into the side of a downtown four-plex last week.
Transit manager George Penny said just before the collision with the building, the bus was hit by another vehicle that had gone through a red light at the intersection at 48th Avenue and 45th Street around 11:15 a.m. last Friday.
The bus was tilted onto two wheels by the force of the impact. The driver managed to keep it from turning over but swerved into the nearby building.
“He really did avoid any other kind of catastrophic type of accident,” he said. The male driver with 10 years of experience is still sore and has not returned to work.
There were no passengers in the bus at the time of the collision. A basement suite damaged when the bus hit its window was also empty.
A family of four lived there, but one son was in school and his parents and his one-year-old sister had left shortly before the incident to go to the mall.
Penny said the bus is one of 14 Action Buses in the fleet. A backup bus has been used since the collision so service has not been affected.
The city is still waiting to see if the bus can be repaired or will be a writeoff.
Penny said the police gave the other driver a ticket, but he had no further details.