Former PAT drivers accused of racing buses found not guilty of reckless endangerment

PITTSBURGH — Two former Port Authority bus drivers accused of racing on the Parkway North in 2014 were found not guilty Thursday of reckless endangerment.

Juliann Maier and Thomas Frauens, who were both fired shortly after the incident, have denied they were racing before the buses collided, sending Maier’s through a guardrail and down an embankment along inbound Parkway North in September 2014. Neither bus had passengers on board at the time.

Video played in court showed Frauens stopping briefly after Maier’s bus went off the road. He told investigators that he spoke with a woman who said she would call 911.

“I wasn’t thinking of all of the state laws or any of that. I was in shock when I saw her go over that guardrail,” Frauens said.

In closing arguments on Tuesday, the defense argued that one of the buses had a long history of problems and mechanical failures that caused the crash.

Meanwhile, prosecutors argued that surveillance video shows one driver gesturing to the other to race. The defense said the gesture is a common way to say hello.

According to Maier, there were problems with the brakes, which caused her bus to careen down the 100-foot embankment onto Evergreen Road.

Expert witnesses said Maier’s bus wouldn’t have passed state inspection.

“I wouldn’t want to drive that bus or be a passenger on it,” Judge Jeffery Manning said Thursday as he issued his ruling.

Although Maier and Frauens were found not guilty of recklessly endangering another person, they were found guilty on traffic violations including reckless driving, not operating at a safe speed for conditions and careless driving. In addition, Maier was fined $250 and Frauens was fined $47. %

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Frauens, who was also found not guilty of leaving the scene of an accident, said he is relieved that the ordeal is over.

“For somebody who’s done nothing wrong in my entire life, to have something like this hanging over my head is torture,” he said. “I’m just happy, really happy today. That’s for sure.”

Joel Sansone, Maier’s attorney, said Thursday’s verdict is only part of the story.

“The worst news here is that the Port Authority gets to hide. They get to hide from the fact that they placed a bus on the road that was so dangerous it could have killed Julie and it could have killed a lot of people,” Sansone said.

He is filing a federal lawsuit against the Port Authority, claiming it fired Maier for reporting the mechanical issues on the bus, and not for the crash itself.

“What are they doing with our tax money? Are they fixing our buses or are they doing something else with it? It’s pretty clear this bus wasn’t repaired,” Sansone said.

In a statement to Channel 11 News, the Port Authority said the following:

“The judge concluded that the truth probably fell somewhere in between the arguments presented by the defense and prosecution. In fact, our buses undergo a strict inspection program and we have a very low annual accident rate for an agency our size.”

Maier and Frauens said they plan to speak with the union about getting their jobs back.

Cox Media Group