right of way

Seems to me that some bigshot at the bus company called some bigshot at the police department and had the verdict changed.

Phil

my thoughts exactly

As a retired LEO with 20 years of experience, I agree with the retired police traffic investigator; the bus driver was at fault. Since the light changed to yellow before he hit the line, he should have stopped. I am not a big fan of litigation, but I am surprised that there was no lawsuit involved. I think that the driver of the car had a very winnable case against the bus company and their driver. If I was the investigator on this case, the bus driver would be getting the citation; not the car driver. (Disclaimer: I am not an attorney and this is my personal opinion.)

I think most of us have been in this car driver's situation where somebody turns or walks in front of your car, someone who may have taken an unnecessary risk to get there. You don't have the right to hit him just because you have a green light or the right of way on open road. It's different if there's no way to stop in time, but if you can avoid hitting him by reasonably anticipating the collision and applying the brakes, as I think the car driver in this video could have done, you have to do that. If you do proceed to hit the other party, either or both of you may be held to be legally liable in a judgment call, and reasonable people may disagree who was most at fault.

In many places, large intersections like that one that have a very long turn across multiple lanes of traffic will delay the green lights to give crossing traffic a chance to clear after their light has turned red. Seems like that would be a good idea in that intersection.