Detroit bus driver gets 6 months in jail for killing pedestrian

DETROIT– A Detroit bus driver who kept her job despite a record of accidents and aggressive driving was sentenced Thursday to at least six months in prison for killing a pedestrian.

It was the second time Geraldine Johnson’s bus hit and killed someone.

“I was baffled by the driving record,” Judge E. Lynise Bryant said.

Janice Bauer, 67, was hit by a city bus in June 2023 while walking through downtown Detroit. She rode a bus regularly and happened to work for a regional transit agency.

Johnson, 61, pleaded no contest to a moving violation causing death, a misdemeanor.

The judge looked at Johnson’s driving record and found that there were many accidents, even after the death of a man who was struck in 2015 while trying to remove his bicycle from the front of her bus.

Johnson did not return to work for more than eighteen months. Under a union contract, she was not disciplined for the death because of the long absence, officials said.

Bryant said Johnson should have questioned her own driving skills after “more than your fair share of crashes.”

“I have to say, ‘Wait a minute. Something isn’t right. There’s something wrong with me. It has to be my perception, my ability, my something,” the judge said.

Johnson did not speak in court.

‘She just didn’t see her. This was not an intentional act,” said attorney Sharon Clark Woodside.

A union official told The Detroit News last year Johnson wasn’t always to blame in crashes.

In court, three siblings told the judge about their love for Bauer. ‘Janice wasn’t done with life yet. She had places to go, things to do and people to see,” Linda Bauer said.

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