AUSTIN -- As KVUE asked Capital Metro for its crash data Monday afternoon, a 13-year-old boy crashed into one of the agency's buses at East 49th Street and Duval Street, sending four people to the hospital.
In 2014, more than 2,100 bus crashes occurred in the state in Texas.
Each day, Alfredo Barrientes waits at the North Lamar Boulevard transit center.
"I get to see different parts of Austin and, you know, different types of culture; it's a pretty cool experience," Barrientes said. He's one of hundreds who ride one of Capital Metro's 68 bus routes.
According to company data, Capital Metro buses get into more than 500 accidents; averaging more than one crash-incident every day.
For the first three quarters of 2015, there were 459. If accidents continue at that rate, there will be more than 600 CapMetro bus accidents this year. That's a 20 percent increase over 2014.
CapMetro bus drivers got into 505 accidents in 2013 and 509 in 2014.
"Half of those, more than half of those, could not have been prevented by our drivers," said Francine Pares, CapMetro communications manager.
Nearly 45 percent could have been prevented.
"We make sure that we are constantly looking at our incident reports and seeing where things could have been prevented," Pares said.
CapMetro said a preventable accident might not cause damage, injury or traffic violation. It could be as simple as hitting a low-hanging tree branch. It can also be much more serious.
On Sept. 14, a bus driver killed 20-year-old Bethany Clark as she crossed the street in North Austin. The driver was given a ticket, cited for failing to yield to a pedestrian and put on administrative leave.
CapMetro drivers go through 240 hours, or about a month, of training and have a commercial drivers license. They also take four hours of refresher courses each year.
Some, such as attorney Todd Kelly, said the training is not enough.
"With 500 accidents a year, you're putting a lot of people's lives at risk," Kelly said. "The care that that they provide has to be above what you'd expect for you and I, and there's good reason for that: they have more lives at stake."
CapMetro said they know this all too well.
"One accident is too many, as far as we're concerned," Pares said. "Safety is our number one concern; we have a very big responsibility."
