Updated, With Onboard Video From All Angles: See The 19 Polk Accident Happen

This footage is MUCH better: http://is.gd/5SafA

Wow, drivecam actually works.

So where is the original video available?

It was emailed to us. The DriveCam was just a video file, but the onboard is a proprietary windows app (not a file, an app!) that we're extracting the video from as we speak.

"Please hold on!"

Feel like e-mailing me the original file in DriveCam format?

P.S. Please smack your ad banner service for me. It's telling me I need to install Setup64168_2006-57.exe to protect my computer from viruses. They'd have a valid point if I were using Windows. :/

The DriveCam is the one posted. The onboard is the app we're extracting from. Jackson's actually done an edit (it was a 12 minute file) and it's almost done uploading now.

Here's my interest: the examiner article said there were seven different points of view that were recorded. Kinda curious to see the whole thing. Too bad neither the MTA nor DriveCam post the whole thing in an easily accessible manner. Alas.

You can see the two DriveCam angles above -- they were sent to us as a wmv, and are in that top video. The other angles the Ex refers to are the onboard cameras, which are significantly older and, like I said, came as part of a proprietary app. We posted the relevant angle as quickly as we could extract is, thanks to Jackson. We're working on the other segments now.

This is actually a big step forward for the MTA, to send release the video a) without a fight and b) without expecting you to go get a DVD that may or may not work, etc.

Sure, this isn't perfect, but this is progress I'm happy to see.

Just looking at that new camera angle, even if the bus made a complete stop and continued driving, that truck would have still ran the stop sign.

Sure, but if the bus had stopped, the bus drier would have seen how fast the truck was coming down the hill. If the bus driver had a sense of self-preservation and had seen how fast the truck driver was coming down the hill, I believe he would have yielded.

And, Eve, I agree this is a step in the right direction. The open source fanboy in me wants to see this done with Ogg Theora so that anyone can view it easily. In any case I just want to dick around with the proprietary app.

Oh, word! And if you had heard me on the phone with Judson True griping at him about how this all needs to be on the MTA site you would have been all BACK OFF BITCH. I hear you! I'm not in a position to give you access to the app right now, but if I ever am, you'll hear from me.

I'm not sure I agree that Muni should be posting these videos to its website. I certainly want them to be readily available to the public (WITHOUT a fight), but I'd want to know more about the cost of putting them online before I took a position on the issue. It seems to me that making them readily available to the press by email or CD may be significantly less expensive for the city, and I'm sure we can count of Eve to post them for us. (Also, if Muni is going to improve its website, I have about 1,000 things that are higher on my list.)

Also, Muni considers 7mph to be "rolling" through a stop sign? 7mph is a pretty fast rolling stop. If the bus had slowed down to a more typical rolling stop, 2-3 MPH, and looked, this accident probably would have been prevented.

So, all those passengers were sent to to hospital? I was expecting something much worse than what the footage shows. Looks like they were lucky...

Is it mandatory that everyone go to the ER in a case like this? I'm just wondering because I was hit by a car while waiting at a bus stop once (along with about 10 other peoples), and was fine, but the emergency crew that arrived on scene insisted I get in an ambulance and go to the ER. As a result, I incurred thousands of dollars in medical bills (that I had to fight) when I really didn't need to go at all....so, always curious in cases like this...

Five of them were, two were treated at the scene and released. This is a good question, though. Let me see what I can find out!

To help the folks at the Weekly and Chronicle out, the executable file sent by Muni included Verint's LWX viewer and all the video data for each of the five cameras (I didn't use every single camera angle in the final edit), and it only runs on Windows (luckily I was on my multi-boot machine, but I also have VMWare for the Mac for stuff like this). I used free, open source CamStudio to capture the video and audio into AVI files, then edited and converted them using Quicktime Pro before uploading to YouTube. All on a $200 netbook, so it's not like I was on state-of-the-art video editing hardware. From end to end it took about two hours from receiving the footage to having it edited, encoded and uploaded, including cigarette breaks.

Waaait. Eve. On drivecam.com, there's a link to "Download the DriveCam Event Player" which takes me here:

http://www.drivecam.com/About/Download_the_Player.aspx

Is this not the same tool we're talking about?

@sunshipballoons:

I think you overestimate the cost of bandwidth, and underestimate the cost of blank DVD, postage, mailers, and time spent doing all of the above on a case by case basis. Additionally, with Newsom's big push for an open government the city has already publicized oodles of information online.

P.S. Eve, I think I would have egged you on. As much as I can tolerate True (far more than Maggie or Linton... I fucking despise Linton), I see no reason to give him a free pass on accident reports and the like. The MTA already doctors their publicly available stats enough to make themselves look good. Someone's got to keep them honest.

ALEX. I AM ALL CAPPING SO IT IS COMPLETELY CLEAR (learned this from the Gate commenters).

THE DRIVECAM FOOTAGE WAS NOT THE PROBLEM.

IT WAS EMAILED TO US AS VIDEO FILE. WE POSTED IT IMMEDIATELY. DRIVECAM FOOTAGE IS EASY PEASY TO SHARE.

THE ONBOARD CAMERAS (WHICH ARE NOT THE SAME THING AS DRIVECAM) WERE THE ONES THAT CAME AS A PROPRIETARY APP THAT WE HAD TO EXTRACT VIDEO FILES FROM.

STOP WORRYING ABOUT DRIVECAM. IT IS THE ONBOARD CAMERAS THAT PRESENT THE TECH CHALLENGE.

xo Eve

Thank you for publishing the video. I have done a frame by frame analysis on the collison video below

http://tungwaiyip.info/blog/2010/01/07/muni_collision_truck_driver_at_fault

It clearly shows that the bus has the right of way and the truck is at fault. Most articles characterize this as both driver has ran stop sign, implying they were equally at fault. I think this is very misleading. A fair reporting should unambigously call out the truck has caused this accident.

@Alex Zepeda-- to over or underestimate those costs, I would have had to make an estimate. As I said, I don't know what the relative costs are of the different ways Muni can offer these videos.

I would add that there are some problems with having a techie automatically post them on the website. What if there are serious injuries, blood, etc? Does Muni post those and risk angering a large segment of the population? Who makes that decision? There are many costs associated with doing such postings, and all I'm saying is that it may be more prudent for Muni to provide the info to the press, and let the press deal with it. Y'know, fourth estate and all...

@EVE THANK YOU

@sunshipballoons Without knowing a whole lot about their exact costs, bandwidth is typically very cheap... and that is likely to be the major cost in publishing the videos online.

As for the gore, slap a disclaimer on it. These videos aren't terribly high quality, and gory stuff gets shown on the news all the time. How many stations showed video of that Australian infant getting run over by a train?

Also, @sunshipballoons, while I really do appreciate your trust in us and the Appeal, I don't know that the press should have a monopoly on access to Muni video information.

Y'all are paying for the system, I think you should have access to information on it without the filter of the press. But, again, I do appreciate the trust! It has made my day!