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It seems like an essential security step: Make sure someone can’t wander into your workplace and steal a company vehicle. But that’s exactly what happened recently at Washington DC’s Metro transit system.

William Jackson, a 19-year-old DC resident, recently walked into a Metro bus yard in full driver uniform, got into a bus, drove off and picked up passengers on the B2 route.

The passengers didn’t suspect their driver was an impostor, until he crashed the bus into a tree and several cars four miles into the route.

Jackson fled but was later arrested. He faces charges of unauthorized use of a vehicle and fleeing an accident.

A spokesman with the Metro Transit Police Department said Jackson simply had a fascination with buses.

This incident is the latest in a series of safety problems for DC’s Metro, including bus drivers striking pedestrians, workers being seriously hurt or killed, and a deadly subway crash that led the Federal Transit Administration to issue scathing safety criticism of the public transit system in the nation’s capital.

Metro says work is underway to enhance security at its facilities.

Tags: fake bus driver, security, Washington DC Metro