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Bus accident witness says driver sold beer on board
Following last week's news coverage of a D.C. double-decker bus accident that claimed the lives of two men on July 11, a witness to the accident is speaking out.
Josh Stoll, 24, of Sterling, and Mike Feiock, 35, of Centreville, hit their heads on a metal rod under the 11th Street overpass as the sightseeing bus headed down Dwight D. Eisenhower Freeway from a tailgating party at RFK to Nationals Stadium for a baseball game that evening.
Shala Christiansen, who was on the bus and who worked with both Stoll and Feiock, is now saying that no verbal safety warnings were ever given and that the driver of the sightseeing bus was selling beer on board.
"I've watched all the news coverage on TV, and I've seen what they showed, and if those warning signs were there then I must have missed them because people were sitting down and they would have been blocked from my view," she said. "As far as a recorded message telling us what to do, nothing was said. As far as the bus driver telling us anything, nothing was said."
Christiansen said the driver of the Open Top Sightseeing bus approached the group of 16 in the parking lot of RFK Stadium and offered his services to take the group to Nationals Park for a baseball game. "He offered to wait for us for 20 minutes while our barbecue grills were cooling off and he said he could sell us cans of beer for two dollars each, on the bus."
Christiansen said that after the accident occurred, the driver "ditched" a cooler containing beer before authorities arrived on the scene.
A spokesperson for the District of Columbia Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs said no license or permit exists for the selling of alcohol aboard a tour bus in the District.
Attorney James Rodio, a former prosecutor for the Town of Herndon who was retained by Open Top Sightseeing after the accident, said that it is not the company's policy to sell any type of alcohol on board the buses.
Tom Alexander, a spokesman for the company, would not answer any questions related to the accident. The driver's name has not been disclosed because no charges were filed in the incident.
According to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, selling alcohol without a license is a misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of one year in jail and/or a $2,500 fine.
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