Video shows limo driver texting while driving
LONG ISLAND, NY -- A party bus cruises down the Long Island Expressway while video shows the driver seems more interested in scrolling and texting on his smart phone than in keeping his 45 passengers safe.
It was the day after four young women were killed when a limo turned into the path of a pickup in Suffolk County. One of the passengers on the bus went to school with some of those girls.
"I was furious. I couldn't believe that a man that had 45 lives in his hands would do this. I wanted to address this immediately," said Amanda, one of the passengers.
She called M and V Limousines to lodge a complaint about the bus driver's texting.
"I didn't want to blow up and make it a big deal at first but they didn't get back to me and that put me over the edge," she said.
That's when Amanda, a teacher on Long Island, decided to post the video to her Facebook page. It went viral, nearly 5-thousand people sharing it with their friends.
"I don't take this lightly especially since we lost four girls in this area that had been friends of mind that was very tragic and I really wanted to do something about the situation," Amanda said.
Less than 24 hours after posting the video and six days after Amanda first took her concerns to the Limousine company, the bus driver was fired.
However, no one ever got back to Amanda, and action was only taken against the driver after the video was posted.
"I have a number of people that work in my office. I'm not sure who she might have spoken too, but I can say this, that as soon as I did find out about it action was taken," Mark Vigliante of M and V Limousines said.
"It's reckless, reckless and illegal," Amanda said.
Amanda wishes she and her friends had confronted the bus driver. She believes his firing is justified and now her hope is that the video underscores the importance of zero tolerance for texting and driving.
"Something can be established where you can't do illegal things, text and drive when you're driving especially when you have these lives in your hands," she said.
The driver of the bus had worked for the company for six months and had no complaints.
The head of the company says he is now seriously considering adding cameras inside the buses and limos to record the drivers.
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