Car Collides With Shoppers’ Shuttle : 5 Aboard Bus, Driver of Auto Hurt in Accident

A 21-year-old Costa Mesa driver ran a red light and crashed into a shuttle bus carrying shoppers into the South Coast Plaza parking lot Wednesday morning, injuring five of them, police said.

Juan Lares, driving a 1980 Mazda, failed to stop at a red light while traveling south on Bristol Street near the San Diego Freeway just before 10 a.m., Costa Mesa Police Officer Tom Winter said. Lares’ car struck a 26-passenger Ford Econoline bus, owned by Pacific Coast Sightseeing Tours, and sent it careening into a traffic signal.

The impact threw one passenger, Arthur Schroeder, 64, of Mexico City, through the bus’s doors and onto the pavement, witnesses said.

Schroeder was taken to Coastal Communities Hospital in Santa Ana, where he was treated and released, as were four other passengers: Robert Sheddy, 7, and his mother, Melody Sheddy, 44, both of Alberta, Canada; Helen Choyke, 61, of Pittsburgh and Betty Lawyer, 57, of Houston.

Lares was also treated for minor injuries at the hospital and released. He was cited for failing to stop at a red light and for driving without automobile insurance, Winter said.

The bus driver, Dawn Conners, 32, of Orange, was not injured or cited. She had just driven off the freeway and was almost across Bristol, heading toward an entrance to the mall parking lot, when Lares’ car slammed into the bus, she said.

“I never saw him,” Conners said. “I know we had the green light.”

The bus is one of three operated by Pacific Coast for South Coast Plaza. Conners was bringing about a dozen passengers from Anaheim hotels to the shopping center. The company also shuttles shoppers between Huntington Beach and Irvine and the mall.

While witnesses and police agreed that Conners was not at fault, the accident is at least her sixth in three years. In August, 1984, she was involved in two accidents within a week of each other while driving buses owned by Town Tour Funbus Co. (now FunBus Systems Inc.), of Anaheim, according to state Department of Motor Vehicles records. She had another accident in 1985, and since she began working for Pacific Coast Sightseeing Tours in February, 1985, she has had two “minor fender-benders,” company president Gerald O’Connell said.

In none of the Pacific Coast accidents was Conners at fault, and, to his knowledge, no one was injured in them, O’Connell said.

“Maybe she’s had some bad luck,” O’Connell said. “She drives in heavy traffic every day, and around the mall--you know what that’s like. One of our main priorities is safety . . . and if someone had a driving problem, we would let them go.”

Attempts to reach Conners Wednesday afternoon were unsuccessful.

DMV records show no accidents involving Lares, but he has been cited three times in recent years: for driving without his license, for speeding and for making an illegal turn on a highway.

Rick Yamagishi, of Lethbridge, Canada, said the bus had picked him and his wife up from the Hyatt Hotel in Anaheim, and they planned to spend most of the day shopping at South Coast Plaza. Seated on the right side of the bus, three rows back, he saw the accident coming.

“I looked out the window . . . and saw this guy (Lares) about to hit us,” said Yamagishi, who was not injured in the crash. “The first impact was OK, but when we hit the light, everyone was thrown back and forth. One man was thrown out . . . I was just holding my wife.”