Bus driver's speed looked at in fatal Enumclaw crash

A Metro bus driver was apparently speeding or following too closely Tuesday when she collided with a pickup in Enumclaw, killing the driver, Trooper Jeff Merrill said Thursday.

Investigators have ruled out weather, road condition and other likely causes, Merrill said.

Sandie Olosky, 35, of Issaquah, was driving the Metro bus east on Highway 164, between Auburn and Enumclaw, when she swerved into oncoming lanes to avoid hitting a sport-utility vehicle that had slowed to turn off the highway, the State Patrol said. The posted speed limit in that stretch of highway is 55 mph.

The SUV driver told authorities he looked in his rearview mirror, saw the bus and didn't think it would be able to stop before hitting him, Merrill said. "When he saw the bus coming up behind him at a high rate of speed he pulled to the right a little bit to afford a little distance," Merrill said.

The bus hit the left rear bumper of the SUV before colliding with a pickup driven by Michael Dahlquist, which was westbound, according to the State Patrol.

Dahlquist, 21, died at the scene of the 4:30 p.m. collision. A passenger in his pickup was treated for minor injuries. Olosky, the four passengers on the bus and the driver of the SUV were not hurt.

Olosky is on paid leave from Metro while the State Patrol and King County Metro investigate the accident.

Olosky was filling in that day on the Enumclaw route, said Metro spokeswoman Linda Thielke. Olosky usually drives a Sound Transit route from West Seattle to Bellevue, via Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Metro records show that the transit service fired Olosky in 2005 for stopping her bus on the West Seattle Bridge for what investigators didn't think to be solid reasons. But she was rehired last year after arbitration, Thielke said.

According to the arbitration's findings, on Jan. 15, 2004, Olosky was driving a route from downtown Seattle, through West Seattle to Burien, when she said two male passengers missed the last downtown stop and got angry when she refused to stop. Olosky said the youths yelled, swore and threatened her.

She called for help and pulled over on the West Seattle Bridge to await backup. Police took the youths off the bus.

Metro investigators found that Olosky had failed to announce the last stop on the way out of downtown and stopped the bus in an unsafe place, according to the report.

On March 26, 2006, an arbitrator found that Metro didn't have "just cause" to fire Olosky, and she was rehired.

Metro wouldn't disclose other details of Olosky's driving record since she started working as a driver in 1994.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com