The TTC bus driver who ran a red light and nearly hit a pedestrian should be given another chance instead of being let go, the union representing the city's transit workers said.
Bob Kinnear, the president of ATU Local 113, said the unnamed driver, a single mother of two, is "deeply embarrassed by her error" and hopes TTC management will reconsider its decision of firing her.
"We believe that most people, if they knew the full circumstances of the incident would be willing to give this single mother of two a second chance, if not as a vehicle operator then in a non-vehicle job at the TTC," Kinnear said in a statement on Tuesday.
The driver was let go following a TTC investigation launched after a video of the incident surfaced online. The video, recorded from a witness's dashboard camera and then posted on YouTube, shows the bus running a red light at approximately 9:15 a.m. last Monday.
As it approaches the pedestrian crossing at Eglinton Avenue East and Ionview Road, the bus swerves into the centre lane to avoid hitting a person crossing the street.
The bus driver has released an open letter to the TTC, saying she feels "absolutely awful about the incident."
"I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart," she wrote. "This was an unacceptable lack of judgment on my part by not noticing the light."
In the letter, she explains that she had assumed the light was green, and hadn't realized it had changed because she was watching a bus stop for potential passengers.
She said she made a split decision to go straight through the red, because she thought her bus would block the intersection if she stopped.
She then sped up and swerved to avoid hitting the pedestrian who was starting to cross the street, she wrote.
"We all make errors while driving whether it's our own vehicles or someone else's. However, driving the bus we are always in the public eye and under scrutiny."
On Tuesday afternoon, TTC spokesperson Brad Ross said that he had not seen the letter, but the TTC considers the matter closed.
