Why did a Bus Plow into a Broad Street Store?

The Herald did a really good job with its redesign to a tabloid. It's clean, attractive and well thought out. Now it needs to improve its coverage.

Take the recent school bus accident on Broad Street, Bus plows into Broad Street storefront. The story was big enough to get coverage by local TV stations. A news report I saw on either channel 30 or 3 included an interview with the owner of the store that was closed by the accident. The store sold and rented videos, according to the television news report.

The Herald reported in part:

Sgt. Gregory Wright of the New Britain Police Department said that the bus driver, whose name was not released at the time, told police his breaks malfunctioned while he was driving down Broad Street.

Some observations and questions:

Although this story is among the top traffic generators on The Herald web site, no one has fixed the misspelling of brakes.

But this story offers ample opportunity for follow-up.

-- How can brakes fail on a school bus? What procedures and processes are in place for ensuring brakes won’t fail?

-- Was the school department called about the accident? Will school officials investigate and check the repair records on this vehicle? Who inspects school buses and what does the law require?

-- Was the bus owner called? What’s the driving record of the operator? Why are police withholding the name of someone who is driving a school bus?

-- Just what will the accident investigation entail? Who will investigate -- what agencies?

-- Are the safety and repair records available under the state FOI laws? If so, why not put a request in for them.

-- What happened to the business hit by the bus? Is it closed? It may be serving a specialized audience and that offers the possibility for a human interest story; a chance to profile a niche business.

-- The initial story has me wondering whether there was on-the-scene reporting. No witness reports? Close calls? The story lede reported that the accident left "onlookers scratching their heads" but there were no onlookers quoted in the story.

There are obvious reasons for wanting to find out what went wrong with this bus. Because if there are problems with this bus – poor maintenance, for instance – there could be problems with other buses. It's a great opportunity for follow-up.

New Britain's Banned Movable Feast

Some 20 years ago, New Britain took a very tough and possibly novel stance against salad bars because of health concerns.

In the mid-1980s, a grocery store chain, Edwards, opened a big store at the site that is now the home of the dollar discount store pictured above. This was a big deal for the city and was seen as major boost for the city's downtown. It wasn't a typical grocery store for that time. There were farmer’s market-like barrels with grains and peanuts that customers scooped into bags. It served hot food and had a salad bar as well.

While grocery store salad bars weren't unknown in the mid-1980s, they were still new enough to get special consideration from the city's health department. The city's health inspectors took keen interest in customer behavior, and especially troubling for them was the practice of some customers, and children especially, to pick at the salad bar. Health inspectors also checked the food temperatures of salad bar items.

It wasn't long after the store opened that the city's health director worried about the health consequences and moved to restrict what could be sold at salad bars. The city's aggressive action received much attention, and the steps it took may have been unique.

The New York Times, in a story about the salad bar trend (The Salad Bar: A Boom in the Movable Feast, August 13, 1986), cited New Britain’s salad bar law as one the most restrictive in tri-state area. According to NYT:

New York State's regulations are much like those in Connecticut and New Jersey but seem positively lax when compared with the local law passed by New Britain,Conn., in 1985. There, self-service of potentially hazardous foods was prohibited. The result was salad bars without dishes containing meat, fish, poultry, eggs or dairy products. Most salad bars in New Britain closed rather than comply.

The Edwards salad bar was removed, and in time so where the scoop barrels.