Not only are MTA buses slower than taking a big wheel tricycle, they're trying to kill us in creative, Final Destination-esque ways. Wheels have come flying off MTA buses twice in 2011, with one incident captured on a surveillance camera. Union leaders claim that the flying wheels are the direct result of MTA cutbacks on maintenance, allegations an MTA spokesman denies to the Daily News. "There have not been changes to maintenance schedules," he says, "Maintenance is not being deferred."
While one union official tells the paper that this near-miss on Northern Boulevard in Queens "nearly struck a woman pushing a baby," we don't see it. Check out what the president of TWU Local 100 called "one of the most horrifying near-misses I have ever seen."
Luckily the bus didn't have any passengers onboard when the tag wheel—which sits between a parallel set of tires to help balance the bus—flew off, causing the bus to skid out of control, and no one was hurt. The MTA claims that maintenance workers at the College Point depot failed to properly grease a turning mechanism, which would explain the runaway wheels. Mechanics then worked overtime to "examine and grease all 130 buses at the depot," but some were still determined by Local 100 to have defects, and one driver was fired while three others were suspended for refusing to drive the supposedly defective buses.
