Nitelink Rant

Chinafoot

well yesterday after college i went to see Team America with a few mates and then we hit the pub for "one or two"....anyway ended up staying there for most of the night and decided to get the 2am nitelink back to Balbriggan.

got to D'Olier street with loads of time to spare and got the bus with no problems. It was a 33N and said Balbriggan on the front. Got on and put €6 in the thingy and said "Balbriggan Please", no problems there either.

so anyway we got to skerries and i was the only person left downstairs and the bus driver stops and tells me to get off because it was the last stop. we werent even on the main street in Skerries, we were up at the back of some housing estate! so i said "its a 33N, you have to go to balbriggan" and he started shouting saying" no no, my inspector told me to go to skerries and then come back to town". so we argued for a few minutes and then a fella came downstairs to see what was going on. he was heading to balbriggan too. so the three of us were having an argument and the driver starts the bus again and drives onto the main street, stops at the garda station and gets out and knocks on the door!! myself and the other guy were absolutely amazed at this. i even got off and double checked that it said balbriggan and not skerries on the front of the bus and sure enough it said Balbriggan.
the driver got no answer at the garda station so he got back on and started heading towards town!
he refused to stop the bus so i told him if he didnt let me off i was going to call the guards. eventually he stopped and left me on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere in between loughshinny and rush. the other guy stayed on because he said "i want to kick the shít out of the driver when he gets off". :rolleyes:

so thankfully i had credit on my phone to call my dad to come and get me (had no money for a taxi). couldnt believe it. it didnt make any sense anyway. if he wanted to get back to town so badly it would have made more sense to go through balbriggan and head out on the motorway instead going back along the coast road! much quicker!

anyway, apologies for the rant folks, am just fuming at the moment. anything could have happened if i hadnt had credit on my phone (which i usually dont...lol) suffice to say there'll be a complaint lodged on monday morning.

this ever happened to anyone else?

_blank_

That is terrible, did you get the reg of the bus or anything?

It is exactly that type of arsehole behaviour that gets the Nightlink it's bad name.

I never get it tbh, and after that story I never will.

Peteee

Jaysus, thats brutal. Least you wernt beaten up like in the last nitelink thread! :eek:

Chinafoot

Peteee wrote:

Jaysus, thats brutal. Least you wernt beaten up like in the last nitelink thread! :eek:

yea thats true. couldnt believe it. my dad rang Dublin Bus today but surprise surprise there was nobody available to talk to him. :rolleyes:

never really had any problems with the nitelink before...well apart from one time when i was waiting for the last one to balbriggan (330am) and i had my ticket and was just standing beside the bus saying bye to my mate and the driver shut the door and i knocked on it before he started driving but he shook his head and drove off. luckily i was able to stay with my mate but would've been screwed otherwise.

think in future i'll either stay local or stay with mates in town. not worth the hassle.

...Major tangent but what is Team America like?

Chinafoot

Myth wrote:

...Major tangent but what is Team America like?

class

you should check out the thread on the film board.

Thanks, and to get off this tangent, sorry to hear about that - can't say that's ever happened to me on a nightlink. Once my nightlink pulled in for 20 mins cos the driver called the cops - two guys tried to jump him or something like that. It doesn't mean someone can be that much of an asshole, but man, I wouldn't like to deal with some of the **** they have to put up with at the same time.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

Amz

Similar thing happened to me on a 66N, the driver tried to dump us off on the Captain's Hill instead of going to Louisa Bridge which is the last stop.

Luckily there were a good few people on the bus who argued with the driver and after he ranted for a while he begrudginly drove us to our stop. I've often gotten a Nite Link where I was the last or second to last person on the bus. I wonder would the driver have just dumped me off in the middle of nowhere if that was the case.

I'd compalin to Dublin Bus if I were you, having made a complaint or two in the past for various problems I've found them to be quite receptive.

Chinafoot

Amz wrote:

I'd compalin to Dublin Bus if I were you, having made a complaint or two in the past for various problems I've found them to be quite receptive.

yea well after getting my dad out of bed at 3am to come and get me.....there'll definitely be a complaint made.

ArthurDent

I'd be seriously ranting and raving about the safety aspect of this when you're making your complaint, and do it in writing and tell them you will be sending a copy of your letter to your solicitor and too the Gerry Ryan/Joe Duffy show. You were left off in the middle of nowhere - Dublin bus need to be given a good kick up the a$$ for this. Make sure your dad sends a written complaint too.

Amz

peachypants wrote:

yea well after getting my dad out of bed at 3am to come and get me.....there'll definitely be a complaint made.

This might sound like an odd question, but are you male or female peachypants?

mycroft

Amz wrote:

This might sound like an odd question, but are you male or female peachypants?

You like him/her*

*delete where applicable.

nlgbbbblth

peachypants wrote:

so thankfully i had credit on my phone to call my dad to come and get me (had no money for a taxi). .............. anything could have happened if i hadnt had credit on my phone (which i usually dont...lol)

Bill phones are so much more practical. Not much point in having a mobile if you can't use it.

Amz

mycroft wrote:

You like him/her*

*delete where applicable.

Yes ... Yes I do.

mycroft

Amz wrote:

Yes ... Yes I do.

Amz n peachy up a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G

The_B_Man

did u never think that the bus driver might have been tryin to bring the double decker bus to his mates gaf for a late night piss up? how cool would that be!

Amz

mycroft wrote:

Amz n peachy up a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G

Well done for blowing my subtlety out of the water!!

If you're jealous mycroft, why not just say it?!

Pfft! Women!

eth0_

I would definitely ring Joe Duffy or even get in touch with a solicitor over this, it's well out of order! That driver and the inspector deserve to lose their jobs over this.

D!ve^Bomb!

i say nuke the bastards!

Hal1

Yea that would rock and then the bus driver would wrap himself around a tree or worse ya think so :f

mycroft

Amz wrote:

Well done for blowing my subtlety out of the water!!

If you're jealous mycroft, why not just say it?!

Pfft! Women!

Yeah amz you and subtlety are two ships passing in the night. Two ships one in different hemispheres.

Amz

Are you calling me fat?

Crucifix

I've never taken it myself, but I've heard people complaining that the one to Balbriggan often ends up taking different routes, cutting out places on the route, not going the full way etc.

mycroft

Amz wrote:

Are you calling me fat?

No just big boned.

kdouglas

this may have got you in a lot of trouble, but if you were feeling adventerous you could have 'borrowed' the bus and drove yourself home, leaving the driver stranded to get a taste of his own medicine, and trying to explain how he managed to lose a bus!

mycroft

kdouglas wrote:

this may have got you in a lot of trouble, but if you were feeling adventerous you could have 'borrowed' the bus and drove yourself home, leaving the driver stranded to get a taste of his own medicine, and trying to explain how he managed to lose a bus!

Yeah boo on them for the letting the law getting in the way of their problem

Tusky

There is no excuse for what the driver did - Can I ask how old are you ? Anything could have happened to you at that time of morning... You should definately pursue this legally. Dont just lodge a normal complaint - get onto the head of Dublin Bus if you can.

That driver will lose his job. Keep us posted.

pickarooney

D!ve^Bomb! wrote:

i say nuke the bastards!

With uranium/plutonium (deplete where applicable).

Tusky

Tusky wrote:

That driver will lose his job. Keep us posted.

sounds nicely vindictive!

on a serious note you can also argue that he tried to get you to get off where there wasn't a stop, completely against Dublin Bus's rules!

_Kaiser_

Just make sure you have the time the bus left town (Ideally also the reg/fleet number) and call the depot on Monday morning... the 33's operate out of Summerhill garage (I'm assuming the 33N does as well but if not they should be able to point you in the right direction). Contact details for all the depots - and Head Office - are here

Don't bother emailing though... as with most Irish companies I find this a waste of time.. ring and ask for the depot manager on Monday morning.

Let us know how you get on..

Dub13

Sorry to here about your experience,I work for Dublin Bus and overheard this been talked about last night.What happend was a foreign driver was on duty and was told to do a run to Skerries,drivers in Dublin Bus use this term "Skerriers run" and it means a full run out to Balbriggan but what happend was this foreign driver took the term literary and only went to Skerries.He is 100% in the wrong,and I understand your point about him being quicker going out to Balbriggan and onto the motorway.

Amz

Peachypants, I'd also highlight the fact that you're a girl and the increased risk to your safety. Anyone being dumped in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night is at an increased risk, but with the number of murders/disappearances of young women and girls in this country is disgusting that bus drivers and the like have such scant disregard for their customers safety.

pickarooney

Dub13 wrote:

He is 100% in the wrong,and I understand your point about him being quicker going out to Balbriggan and onto the motorway.

Hardly 100% if he's being given misleading information. Still sounds like a wanker though.

mycroft

Amz wrote:

Peachypants, I'd also highlight the fact that you're a girl and the increased risk to your safety. Anyone being dumped in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night is at an increased risk, but with the number of murders/disappearances of young women and girls in this country is disgusting that bus drivers and the like have such scant disregard for their customers safety.

Two points
1) I'll stop making Amz jokes

2) In this situation refuse to get off. The guy can take you to his depo etc or a gardai station or whatever but your ticket states your destination, if he takes you to a station and then refuses to go further demand he takes you to a police station and demand he takes you off. He takes you to a depoy and refuses to speak to you, tell them you won't get off, they'll get in trouble. Hold your ground. You have a ticket thats a contract for the driver to take you to your destination. and if they fail to bring you to your destination. If they threaten you you can inform your driver you have in your hand they contract and you can sue if they breach the contract. If they get pissy refuse to get off anf hold your ground and demand the garda. at worst you can demand they take you home, at best you can threaten CIE and Dublin bus for kidnapping and breach of contract.

Chinafoot

hello all again....decided to stay local tonight....no more nitelinks!

anyway to anser Amz ( ) i am a girl and im 21!

i talked to my sisters fiance, Dave, tonight about it he because he works for Dublin Bus and he said the same...that if it ever happened again to stay on the bus because i am in the right and they have to bring me home. to be honest i was just so pissed off at that stage (not to mention completely freaked out) so i just wanted to get off and go home. Dave said to take the complaint the whole way because at the end of the day he left a girl stranded in the middle of nowhere and as somebody here pointed out, he didnt leave me at a bus stop....which they cant do!

to make it even worse...i bumped into the guy that stayed on the bus tonight and he said that when they got to rush there was another bus with an "out of service" sign heading out towards Balbriggan and the driver of our bus stopped and the guy got on this other bus and was brought home!! that doesnt make any sense! it would have been an extra 10-15 mins on this guys journey to just bring us where we supposed to go instead of all the messing about stopping at garda stations and arguing with us!

another thing my sisters fella warned me of was that because the driver was black chances are when a complaint is made against him he'll claim that i was racially abusive. now i know thats a horrible horrible thing to say but dave said hes seen it happen so many times in Dublin Bus.

my dads mate is a researcher for the gerry ryan show so if ya hear this story on 2fm you'll know its me!!

Agent Smith

Joe duffy, to be honest....

Gothic Warrior

peachypants wrote:

well yesterday after college i went to see Team America with a few mates and then we hit the pub for "one or two"....anyway ended up staying there for most of the night and decided to get the 2am nitelink back to Balbriggan.

got to D'Olier street with loads of time to spare and got the bus with no problems. It was a 33N and said Balbriggan on the front. Got on and put €6 in the thingy and said "Balbriggan Please", no problems there either.

so anyway we got to skerries and i was the only person left downstairs and the bus driver stops and tells me to get off because it was the last stop. we werent even on the main street in Skerries, we were up at the back of some housing estate! so i said "its a 33N, you have to go to balbriggan" and he started shouting saying" no no, my inspector told me to go to skerries and then come back to town". so we argued for a few minutes and then a fella came downstairs to see what was going on. he was heading to balbriggan too. so the three of us were having an argument and the driver starts the bus again and drives onto the main street, stops at the garda station and gets out and knocks on the door!! myself and the other guy were absolutely amazed at this. i even got off and double checked that it said balbriggan and not skerries on the front of the bus and sure enough it said Balbriggan.
the driver got no answer at the garda station so he got back on and started heading towards town!
he refused to stop the bus so i told him if he didnt let me off i was going to call the guards. eventually he stopped and left me on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere in between loughshinny and rush. the other guy stayed on because he said "i want to kick the shít out of the driver when he gets off". :rolleyes:

so thankfully i had credit on my phone to call my dad to come and get me (had no money for a taxi). couldnt believe it. it didnt make any sense anyway. if he wanted to get back to town so badly it would have made more sense to go through balbriggan and head out on the motorway instead going back along the coast road! much quicker!

anyway, apologies for the rant folks, am just fuming at the moment. anything could have happened if i hadnt had credit on my phone (which i usually dont...lol) suffice to say there'll be a complaint lodged on monday morning.

this ever happened to anyone else?

What a complete d*ck. AAAAAHHHH. The frustration.

Red Alert

Seems to fit in with general nitelink stories alright. I'm glad you were ok PeachyPants! Leaving a girl who's had even one or two drinks on her own in the middle of nowhere is just unforgivable.

That was really awful. Refusing to get off is the best idea - he'll get in a hell of a lot of trouble for arriving at the depot with somebody still on board. You should also take note of the bus's number, it's not the DBK123 or SHL123 on the ticket, it looks like RA169 or AV438 or similar and is printed at one side of the door. I've started doing that on the Nitelink, it's difficult when i'm pissed but hey you never know when you might need it.

eth0_

peachypants wrote:

another thing my sisters fella warned me of was that because the driver was black chances are when a complaint is made against him he'll claim that i was racially abusive. now i know thats a horrible horrible thing to say but dave said hes seen it happen so many times in Dublin Bus.

Even if you had been racially abusive, it does NOT give him the right to throw you off the bus in the middle of no where!
Also you have a witness, that other guy.
If he had been so intimidated he would have rung the guards. Stand firm, that tw*t should lose his job.

pork99

Happened to me a few years ago - got an 11 but it was actually an 11A which the driver couldn't be arsed to put the right no. up on. But I only had to walk across Mount Merrion.. Still it was a bit of a p!sser at the time.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

crazy angel

thats annoying as hell! kudos to the guy who beat the sh1t outta the driver!

_Kaiser_

Having read the response from Dub13 above, I can see how this situation occured, but surely it's not the passengers fault that DB staff can't be clear even amongst themselves is it??

If this "foreign driver" wasn't aware of the route then he shouldn't have been assigned to it in my opinion. Tho I'm sure you can't tell us, it'd be interesting to hear what the outcome of this chat in the depot was? More importantly, seeing as the driver in question was "100% in the wrong", has any action been taken against the driver AND to ensure that people who don't know where they're going aren't sent out in the future??

I should add that this isn't meant as an attack on Dub13 at all..indeed, fair play for him/her coming on and posting about it - it's generally more than you get from DB in my experience - but in my view it's no excuse for leaving a girl stranded at 2:30 in the morning and I personally would still ring on Monday about it.

Kazujo

I got the 33N home from town for the first time the otehr nigth going the full run to Balbriggan it was teh 3.30 one. Before we even got out of town there was a bit of a scuffle upstairs and two lads came down apparantly a few punches had been thrown but nothing major.

All was quiet for most of the journey except hearing one of the lads going on and on and on and on about standing his ground blah blah blah.

Just as we were getting near to Skeeries (not too near) some of the other blokes from upstairs came down next of all they attack the first two blokes, followed by a line of blokes coming down the stairs trying to get there fist in too.

The driver stops the bus and one of the fellas is pinned in the middle door well while all the animals from upsatirs are laying into him.

By the end of it the two blokes that came down first had bloody faces possibly broken noses, the driver opens the doors they pretty much fell out, He then drove off leaving them in the middle of no where and all of the fellas that attacked them were left standing in the isal of teh bus gloating about the blood on their hands and their cloths and saying about how they bashed them.

No Gardai called that I could see and all off the attackers just got off at their stops and dissappeared. What sort of country do we live where the bus driver wont/cant call ahead for a paddywagon and/or squad car to pick up ALL involved parties? I'm not suggesting that he interveins in the incident directly but the least he can do is call the gards

eth0_

Isn't it an offence to witness a crime and not report it?

The majority of Dublin Bus drivers are pricks, this thread is just reinforcing my opinion.

D!ve^Bomb!

sounds like the first two lads should be lucky the other lot didn't get out at the same time.. i'd rather be stranded in the middle of no where after taken a beaten then be left in the middle of no where WITH the guys that gave me a beatin:)

Utter scum though!!!:mad:

Kazujo

That's true, I just hope their phones weren't damaged in the scuffle

ferdi

if they did that to me i would persue the matter until dublin bus burned. they are a complete joke of a company, i cant believe the **** they pull. and they just raised their prices, they should all be shot.

_Kaiser_

you should follow up with the garage tomorrow morning Kazujo (as should the original poster) - Summerhill or possibly Harristown (as they provide a lot of extra buses for all routes) would be the places to start. Ask for the Depot/Operations Manager...and always make a note of the reg or the fleet number (generally located either directly above or below the left front window, starts with AVxxx/RVxxx/RAxxx/RHxxx on the double deckers) when calling in - though with a Nitelink there shouldn't be too much trouble narrowing it down as long as you have the time it left town..and you do

John R

Kazujo wrote:

I got the 33N home from town for the first time the otehr nigth going the full run to Balbriggan it was teh 3.30 one. Before we even got out of town there was a bit of a scuffle upstairs and two lads came down apparantly a few punches had been thrown but nothing major.

All was quiet for most of the journey except hearing one of the lads going on and on and on and on about standing his ground blah blah blah.

Just as we were getting near to Skeeries (not too near) some of the other blokes from upstairs came down next of all they attack the first two blokes, followed by a line of blokes coming down the stairs trying to get there fist in too.

The driver stops the bus and one of the fellas is pinned in the middle door well while all the animals from upsatirs are laying into him.

By the end of it the two blokes that came down first had bloody faces possibly broken noses, the driver opens the doors they pretty much fell out, He then drove off leaving them in the middle of no where and all of the fellas that attacked them were left standing in the isal of teh bus gloating about the blood on their hands and their cloths and saying about how they bashed them.

No Gardai called that I could see and all off the attackers just got off at their stops and dissappeared. What sort of country do we live where the bus driver wont/cant call ahead for a paddywagon and/or squad car to pick up ALL involved parties? I'm not suggesting that he interveins in the incident directly but the least he can do is call the gards

I assume you called the Guardai then, seeing as you witnessed the whole thing?