A 67-YEAR-old Filipina was killed after a tourist bus ran into her while she was crossing a pedestrian lane in San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza on Oct. 23.

Initial reports identified the victim as Priscilla “Precy” Moreto, an employee of San Francisco City Hall.

Police report said that the incident occurred at around 11 am when Moreto crossed the street, while a tourist bus traveling at five miles an hour passed by.

The tour bus driver affirms that he did not notice anyone walking the street. Tourists on board the bus attested that they did not see the pedestrian get run over because they were focused on looking up at City Hall.

The National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NAFFAA) condemned the incident. The group wrote a letter to the Board of Supervisors appealing to stop “multi-tasking” bus drivers who also act as tour guides while their vehicles are in motion.

Drivers such as the suspect “get distracted and pose a grave danger to seniors and small children who are often hard to see,” the NAFFAA stated in their letter signed by the organization’s San Francisco Chair Rudy Asercion.

“In this connection we urge you to prohibit tour bus drivers from acting also as tour guides while actively driving tour buses in the city and county of San Francisco,” the letter said. “Please make it a requirement for Tourist Bus owners to employ a tour guide separately from the bus driver.”

(With reports from Inquirer.net)

(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Midweek October 29-31, 2014 Sec. A pg.1)