Bus Eireann Driver

javax6

Hi,

Just today I had an altercation with a bus driver on the 109a, from Navan to Dublin. I've written almost a complete letter that I'm planning on sending to the Regional Manager. I'd like to post it here to see what other people make of this. The letter is completely genuine and I'm not hiding any facts about what happened, so please let me know what you think.

START

The following incident happened at 9pm on Sunday the 16th of May. The bus in question was the 109a – SC257.

I know the bus driver in question because he drives the 109a regularly and I have been witness to his demanour before. I have also noticed his attitude stands out amonsgt the other bus drivers, in that he is, arrogant, unhelpful and contemptuous to customers.

My mother and I were waiting at the bus stop, and the bus pulled up behind our car and beeped at us to move. I would like to point out at this stage that my mother was not blocking his entry to the bus stop whatsoever, in fact she had taken great care to park away from the stop so that she would not block any bus pulling in. I have noticed him behaving like this to other motorists, he is excessively rude. One example of this, which I noticed a few months past, is when a woman in a car was attempting to pull off from the stop out of his way, but she could not move immediately as the traffic was heavy. He blew the horn of the bus repeatedly and completely unnecessarily, causing the woman some obvious distress.

When he was pulling off from the stop he beeped at my mother again, once again she was not in his way.

At this stage began my contact with him. He shouted at me from the front of the bus “Tell your mother not to park in bus spaces”. His manner was in no way pleasant. His raised voice and insulting tone was very upsetting to me so I walked down to him. I said “Did you say something to me?”.

Again in the same tone used as before and the same raised voice he shouted at me “I said, tell your mother not to park in bus spaces.” I responded “be careful what you say” and proceeded to return to my seat. I would like to take this opportunity to say that my voice was not raised when I said this.

He began shouting at me “Come back here, come back here!” “There are laws for parking in bus spaces and if you don’t like it, I will eject you from this bus right here.”

At this point I started to fear for my safety, as he was shouting very loudly at me and I was unsure what he meant by “ejecting me from the bus.” To be quite honest I feared he would harm me, so threatening was his manner.

I attempted to explain to him that my mother was not blocking his entry to the bus stop whatsoever, in fact she had taken great care to park away from the stop so that she would not block any bus pulling in. He continued to shout over me and would not let me speak. The last thing he said was along the lines of “finding another method of transport”. I had returned to my seat at this stage.

The rest of the journey passed and we arrived at DCU. I walked to the front of the bus and asked this man,

“Would you tell me your name?”
“No I won’t, I’ll tell you the bus number’s on the side of the bus, if you have a problem you take that and away you go.”
“You’re a public servant, yes? I’m entitled to know your name.”
“You’re not entitled to know, the only person that’s entitled to know my name is a Guard, end of story. Take the number of the bus and away you go, I don’t mind at all”
“So what can I take then to identify you?”
“The bus number”
“Where?”
“On the front of it”
“You can’t tell me it?”
“It’s a number, same as a car has a number, a bus has a number.”
“Okay, just want to let you know I’m going to take this further, okay.”
“Your problem is what?”
“The way you’ve spoken to me”
“I asked you to tell your mother, not to park in the bus stop cos it was causing problems for the bus” << Here, this is not what happened, what I got was an insulting shout from the front of the bus, I was not ‘asked’ to do anything. I don't believe this man even has the right to comment on this to me, never mind the fact that he was wrong as I have outlined above, my mother was not in the way.

“You spoke to me in a threatening, abusive manner.”
“Excuse me, you came down to me and said “did you say something to me” and then you said “watch what you’re saying”. You were the one being threatening to me.” << Once again, I did not speak to him in any way that could be contsrued to be threatening. I also said “careful what you say.”

“Take the bus number and report away, go on”
“Okay, I will.”

At this point I walked of the bus and continued on my way.

I'm pretty distressed over this incident and I think that the bus driver was very out of line.

foggy_lad

i'd be looking for him to lose his job for his awful behaviour and manner and lose his licence for at least 3months for using the horn in that manner there is no need for that kind of abuse from someone driving a bus!

delly

OK the bus driver may be a bit heavy on the horn, but I don't think he much in the wrong tbh. Who was and wasn't shouting is something which can't really be proved and if the driver was advising your mother not to park near the bus stop then she must have been causing some kind of obstacle. It makes no sense that he starting horning her if she was nowhere near the stop.

Lastly the “be careful what you say” line could easily be interpreted as a threat as it is an open ended statement. tbh the driver probably was rude and load, but I think your making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill.

dermot_sheehan

You're mother appears to have been obstructing a bus stop.

He told you off for it.

You asked him for his name, he said he had no obligation to give it to you. He's correct he doesn't have to give you his name.

You annoyed him about it while driving the bus.

Am I missing something here?

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

BenShermin

To be honest I wouldn't have posted the letter you're about to send to Bus Éireann all over a public forum.

You'd write a letter to a newspaper about a crap bus service to Cork for example. You wouldn't write a letter to a newspaper about how ignorant the bus driver on the 1600hrs bus ex Busaras was, would you?

The very fact that you need to find out what people think about the incident on a forum says to me that you're unsure yourself. I've had genuine problems with Dublin Bus drivers in the past and I sure as hell didn't seek a forum's opinion, I straight away dealt with it in private.

AlekSmart

To be honest I wouldn't have posted the letter you're about to send to Bus Éireann all over a public forum.

Absolutely 100% with you there Ben Shermin.

The OP has an issue with Bus Eireann full stop.

The company has procedures for handling such complaints,so unless and until such procedures have been exhausted it is very unwise to be trawling the net for moral or other support.

At this point we appear to have a clash of personalities at the very least but the OP should bear in mind the very recent Court Judgements regarding opinions posted on the Internet which could impact on a situation such as this.

I would say the OP has predjudiced their own case somewhat already ?

Mods: Feel free to lock/delete/warn as appropriate ?

silverharp

OP, if you get the bus on a regular basis, front seat and camera, you might get lucky. Youtube is your friend

amiable

gabhain7 wrote: »

You're mother appears to have been obstructing a bus stop.

He told you off for it.

You asked him for his name, he said he had no obligation to give it to you. He's correct he doesn't have to give you his name.

You annoyed him about it while driving the bus.

Am I missing something here?

Maybe just maybe we have another person just fed up with being insulted and abused and sick of the bad service so many people in ireland experience all the time but are too shy or don't want to report.
I agree he has no obligation to give his name and maybe he shouldn't have approached the driver while driving.
People need to vent sometimes.
There's 2 sides to every story though no matter how much one person wants to tell exactly what happened

clunked

Condi wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

So you are inciting someone to commit an act of violence against Bus Eireann Drivers. So how would you feel if the same thing was said in general against your own job or profession. Grow up.

super_furry

Don't really see what the bus driver did wrong, especially in the light of what I would consider to be an implied threat from you.

MagicMarker

lol, what a ridiculous thread.

OP, your mother was parked at a bus stop, it doesn't matter if she was in his way or not, she's not supposed to be there! This driver probably gets this all day and tbh it would piss me off too.

The only one threatening was you with ''carefull what you say'', you don't have to shout to be threatening.

Is there some ailment you have that prevents you from getting out of the car and waiting at the bustop like everyone else?

murphaph

clunked wrote: »

So you are inciting someone to commit an act of violence against Bus Eireann Drivers. So how would you feel if the same thing was said in general against your own job or profession. Grow up.

Do you know what incitement is?

The poster did not incite anyone to assault any Bus Eireann employees.

To the OP:
If you just want BE to be made aware of this man's behaviour so they can have a word with him and monitor it, then I see no problem posting it on here. However, if you intend taking some sort of legal action (I can't see anything being successful) then yeah, you should delete your post.

It sounds like this guy is perhaps under some sort of stress that he needs help with from BE. You might be doing him a favour before he has a stroke. Whether or not your mother was illegaly parked in a bus stop is really irrelevant: he had no grounds to call down the bus to you about it, you were not the driver. If he wanted to discuss it with you he should have waited until you were alighting and done so quietly, out of earshot of other passengers, just common courtessy really.

Most bus drivers are nice, some aren't. If this guy makes a habit of being abusive then he should accumulate a collection of complaints in his personnel file and that should be acted upon by BE before it causes an accident. You are perfectly correct to write to BE. If it is an isolated incident the driver has nothing to fear, if not, he needs looking at from a safety point of view if not from a customer service one.

Bluetonic

super_furry wrote: »

Don't really see what the bus driver did wrong, especially in the light of what I would consider to be an implied threat from you.

I agree. I would have ignored the bus driver. Also we need to be aware that we're only hearing one side of the story here.

The letter is also pretty badly written. Unless there is some way to prove what you've quoted was said then I would not have written it that way. Also not sure what you were harping on about ("I'm entitled") demanding his name as he's a public servant?

corktina

you need to appreciate that buses need a lot of space to pull in to the kerb at stops, which is why stops are so much larger than the bus. Your opinion of not being in the way is probably not correct and if you were baulked at half a dozen stops every morning, you might understand why a driver might not be in the best of moods when yet another motorist holds him up.

Moral: don't park on bus-stops....

HydeRoad

With respect, the OP or their mother are not a judge of how much space a bus needs at a bus stop, unless either of them drive a large bus themselves. There are issues regarding pulling in and out safely, having the tail of the bus clear of the thoroughfare, stopping smoothly, not being hit from behind, and visibility issues.

As a bus driver myself, car parking in bus stop spaces is endemic, and one of the single most frustrating and obstructive things about driving a bus in service. Granted, the driver should have been a bit more diplomatic about how he dealt with the issue, but it is wholly ignorant of people to park in a bus stop space under any circumstances, even to drop someone at a bus stop. Why didn't you get out of the car, why sit in the car and wait until the bus was ontop of you?

OP appears in the wrong here. By all means complain privately about the manner of the driver, but I really think you have no case. The law on parking in bus stops is there for a reason, particularly when a bus wants to use that bus stop. It does apply to you too, unfair as that may seem.

Gulliver

OP, judging by the majority of replies, you're not going to get anywhere with this. This shouldn't prevent you sending the letter in a non-legal manner, though.

The problem is that "be careful what you say" uttered in a low voice is just as much of a threat as if you roared at him.

Also, you need to include more facts in your letter. For example, I have to assume from your post your mother was not parked in/on the marked stop area. The statement is too ambiguous - you need to describe the position of your mother's car in relation to the stop, the distance from it, etc.

BuffyBot

Oh dear lord.

Honestly OP - build a bridge, get over it.

dsane1

Iirc there is a big car park at the bus stop on the navan by pass,why did'nt she park in it ?

PhiliousPhogg

Wow OP, people aren't really giving you the benefit of the doubt here!

I agree with everything murphaph said. I believe you that his behaviour is out of line on a consistent basis. I have seen atrocious behaviour on occasion from bus drivers (not to tarnish, just the minority). That's exactly why it should be brought to the attention of Bus Eireann management so that it is documented. What if he does something worse in the future? Maybe people have already complained about him and he's on a warning.

PhiliousPhogg

In fact OP, i bet you the cost of a Navan fare if you post the same thing in the Biz >> Consumer >> Consumer Issues forum you'll get a whole different reaction.

bmaxi

Looking at it rationally, despite your opinion of the driver and his perceived previous demeanour.
If you hadn't been parked in the bus bay there would have been no incident, no upset, no shouting, no letters. There's got to be a lesson in there somewhere.

KC61

Whatever the rights and wrongs of this case, surely OP you would be better dealing with Bus Eireann directly rather than having this discussed on an internet forum?

Nozebleed

get a grip miss's.

javax6

murphaph wrote: »

Do you know what incitement is?

The poster did not incite anyone to assault any Bus Eireann employees.

To the OP:
If you just want BE to be made aware of this man's behaviour so they can have a word with him and monitor it, then I see no problem posting it on here. However, if you intend taking some sort of legal action (I can't see anything being successful) then yeah, you should delete your post.

It sounds like this guy is perhaps under some sort of stress that he needs help with from BE. You might be doing him a favour before he has a stroke. Whether or not your mother was illegaly parked in a bus stop is really irrelevant: he had no grounds to call down the bus to you about it, you were not the driver. If he wanted to discuss it with you he should have waited until you were alighting and done so quietly, out of earshot of other passengers, just common courtessy really.

Most bus drivers are nice, some aren't. If this guy makes a habit of being abusive then he should accumulate a collection of complaints in his personnel file and that should be acted upon by BE before it causes an accident. You are perfectly correct to write to BE. If it is an isolated incident the driver has nothing to fear, if not, he needs looking at from a safety point of view if not from a customer service one.

Thanks for that response, you said exactly how I felt about the situation. He did not have any grounds for shouting it down the bus at me, and if he had discussed it with me in a civil way then of course I wouldn't have minded so much. The problem for me was his manner, which was completely out of line. Most of the bus drivers are good people.

I don't intend taking legal action as that would be pointless, but I am going to send the letter after some amendments.

Thanks all for the comments.

Mark200

clunked wrote: »

So you are inciting someone to commit an act of violence against Bus Eireann Drivers. So how would you feel if the same thing was said in general against your own job or profession. Grow up.

They didn't incite anything.


I don't see any problem with sending the letter in. Not so much for that one incident, but just to make Bus Eireann aware that the driver in question often acts like this (which seems to be the case based on what you said). He's really doing Bus Eireann no favours if he acts like that, whether he is in the wrong or not.

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

Lando Griffin

I hate it when people park in bus stops forcing the bus to park on the street and block traffic behind them.
I hate it when people who make stupid driving decisions and when you blow your beep at them, they find it annoying.

star.chaser

You began to fear for your safety but you still stayed on the bus and were in his face trying to provoke a reaction?
Bus drivers, while not all angels have to deal with a lot worse than you on a daily basis.
I'm not sure if you really sent this letter but do you really think they'll take any notice.
Sounds like you and mummy dearest have had your feelings hurt by this rude bus driver trying to do his job and you've hatched a plan to punish this offensive male chauvinist.

AlekSmart

There is absolutely no reason for the OP to delay from submitting their letter free from any addenda which might arise from posting in this place.

However when submitting such reports people need to be somewhat reflective about what the write and what that may convey to a remote reader.

One must decide if one is making a gereral complaint re service levels etc or whether one is citing an individual occurence as management approach to each type of complaint may differ substantially.

EG:.........

I know the bus driver in question because he drives the 109a regularly and I have been witness to his demanour before. I have also noticed his attitude stands out amonsgt the other bus drivers, in that he is, arrogant, unhelpful and contemptuous to customers.

Then....

One example of this, which I noticed a few months past, is when a woman in a car was attempting to pull off from the stop out of his way, but she could not move immediately as the traffic was heavy. He blew the horn of the bus repeatedly and completely unnecessarily, causing the woman some obvious distress.

Also...

He shouted at me from the front of the bus “Tell your mother not to park in bus spaces”. His manner was in no way pleasant. His raised voice and insulting tone was very upsetting to me so I walked down to him. I said “Did you say something to me?”.

There appears to be a suggestion that we are hearing the latest of quite a long running series of "issues" with an individual Bus Eireann Staff Member ?

I`m curious as to how this BusDriver knew that the car driver was your Mother ?
Again, are there undertones of a somewhat different relationship than merely Busdriver/Pasenger here..?

It`s all academic in terms of posting on a Public Forum,but if I were making a complaint regarding a single incident I would stick resoutely to that incident and Nothing else.

Silverharp made a point re....

OP, if you get the bus on a regular basis, front seat and camera, you might get lucky. Youtube is your friend

The OP might not even have to resort to "getting lucky" with U-Tube,as most of the new Bus Eireann vehicles are fitted with Forward Facing CCTV which will remove all ambiguity from the issue of Car Parking at Stops etc.

Come to think of it the term "getting lucky" might suggest a person who embarks on a journey merely to find a problem... ?

Bluetonic

javax6 wrote: »

I don't intend taking legal action as that would be pointless, but I am going to send the letter after some amendments.

Just as well as you've absolutely no ground for legal action.

Stop watching Judge Judy and get on with your life would be my recommendations.