TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A woman is speaking out about some dangerous driving she witnessed on a RedCoach bus in our area.
On July 12th, Maria Jimenez took a bus from Orlando to Tallahassee. On the way, she saw the driver texting, reading and even FaceTiming while driving. Jimenez says the driver started doing all this almost immediately after they pulled out of the RedCoach station in Orlando.
That's why Jimenez pulled out her phone, recording multiple videos of the dangerous driving she was seeing firsthand.
"90% of the trip, she was on the phone," said Jimenez, a California resident who was in town to visit her daughter who lives in Tallahassee. "None of the other passengers were aware of what's going on, I just happened to be sitting in the front row to be able to record and see exactly what was going on."
Jimenez didn't say anything directly to the driver, but later called RedCoach to address the issue.
"I thought, if this is something that she is doing often, it needs to be addressed," said Jimenez. "The first person who answered hung up on me. The second person told me there's nothing they can do about it."
WTXL reached out to RedCoach's Customer Service Department and received a statement that reads, in part: "RedCoach do not approve this behavior, which definitely does not meet our safety standards. We have forwarded the information to the corresponding department in order to investigate further using our surveillance camera system and it has been decided by our management that the driver will no longer continue to work for the company. We will be looking forward to prevent this situation to repeat in the future, since the passenger's safety is our number one concern."
Jimenez says her only intention is to help protect others who ride with RedCoach.
"You don't gamble with other people's lives that way. That's not right," said Jimenez.
