VANCOUVER — The B.C. Limousine Association wants answers following a tragic accident over the weekend in which a young woman fell out of a party bus and was run over by the vehicle.
Association director Sarb Nagra said Monday it is hard to understand how the 23-year-old woman fell out of the moving bus, because the doors normally lock when the vehicles are in gear.
“As far as I know, the doors should be locked when you put the bus in gear,” Nagra said. “It automatically locks.”
Even if the door somehow opened while the bus was moving, Nagra said, a warning signal should have immediately come up on the dashboard to notify the driver.
Nagra said the association will work with Transportation Minister Todd Stone if tighter regulations are needed to avoid further tragedies.
He said he wants to wait for investigators to fully review the tragedy and then act. “We will work with the transportation minister once we know what happened so it never happens again,” said Nagra.
“We don’t want these things to ever happen again,” he said. “Everybody in the business suffers. People don’t want to book a party bus after a tragic thing like this happens.”
After an initial investigation, Vancouver police said the 23-year-old woman from Surrey fell out while the vehicle was turning off West Hastings Street to head south on Burrard Street at 9:30 p.m. Saturday. The woman was with a group celebrating a birthday. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
There were 24 people aboard the bus, owned by Silver Lady Limousine Services, on their way to a nightclub in the West End.
