To the driver of a certain Metro Transit bus in Dartmouth.
I am fully aware that there are cameras on the buses now. I suppose at 10:00 the other night it was perfectly acceptable for you to stop the bus in the middle of the street (with only you driving, and me in the far back corner), ask me to come to the front, and then SCREAM at me, because I forgot to sign my bus pass. Thanks for the reminder that, “If you don’t show your bus pass SIGNED, and your student ID card, then it’s MY ass on the line…and I’ll just kick you off the bus.”
Well my friend, if the surveillance cameras are for safety purposes, I suppose it’s a good thing they rewound the tape and caught you reaming a out 21 year old woman on the bus, in the middle of the night.
Smile, you’re on candid camera!
—Loathing Metro Transit
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2009.
consolation prize, you weren’t publicly reamed…
though no reaming feels very good.
It could have been much worse… as the scenario you set up sounds like a lead in to a decent horror movie.. until it goes all ‘jeepers creepers’ and ruins it.
The camera is your friend.
What’s so hard about signing the bus pass? They officially you can’t sign it now, but who’s going to tell? I remember someone posted a bitch about the same thing a few months ago, and their excuse was “I don’t have time.” Ha ha ha.
While passes should be signed (you never know, you might lose them), making it a point to talk to someone about it seems a bit petty. I will say that he at least waited until you were alone so that you weren’t publicly embarassed.
I picture him as being something like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA4kTpy67Us…
Kudos to you for raising a stink! Follow through w/ it too, we pay their salaries by buying those passes and fares to ride the wretched MTS, a little respect is in order here, verbal abuse is unacceptable behavior from a public service worker. Unless he’s disciplined, he’ll just do the same to some other girl riding alone at night. (I had an issue w/ an Acadian Lines driver last year when I was the last person on the bus at 10:30pm…)
Being young and female, some people expect you to sit and take whatever bullshit is dished up, so they do or say things they wouldn’t even try w/ anyone else… If you don’t stand up for yourself, who will?
Not much you can do other than complain toe Metro transit. I’m sure they would just put it in the LARGE file though and forget about it.
p.s. Might try signing your pass!!
Stopping the bus in the night time, to scream at a lone, female passenger, is fucked up. It’s not ok, however bad his night of driving in the Darkness was, and imho, regardless of whether or not the stupid pass was signed, period.
Maybe the OP should consider talking to the media if MT gives her no satisfaction, ie: at the very least she should get an apology from the screamer. There is a precedent to be set here…
That is a bad situation. I don’t understand why the driver stopped in the middle of the route. I forgot to sign my pass a few years ago and got that public reaming, but they usually do it when you board. I’d say to go to the media, but I don’t see that being very effective.
This happened to me in ottawa, except I was reamed out by the driver when HE fucked up, drove past me (at the stop at the terminal) and when I threw my hand in the air like “WTF?” (never gave him the finger though), he stopped the bus and yelled at me to “HURRY UP AND GET THE FUCK ON THE BUS” then he continued to yell at me on the bus until other passengers got on — for a good 10 minutes at least (I was the only one on the bus). I told him he was a miserable asshole when I got off the bus and proceeded to then have a full blown anxiety attack. That shit was scary, especially since he had like a foot at least on me and weighed about 200lbs more.
I called OC transpo and nothing was ever done because he kept on driving the route and kept on harassing people (although not as bad as me because others were around).
Unfortunately, it’s more normal to get an asshole for a bus driver up there than a non asshole. I appreciate bus drivers in hfx a lot more because of that fact.
Get the media involved? I can see the headline now, “Bus Driver Gets Mad At Passenger For Not Signing Bus Pass”. Bet ya that would sell a ton of papers. Get over it, it sucks that the driver made such a big deal of it but I bet you next time you’ll have that pass signed, right?
The Metro would probably print it and not list The Coast and Facebook as references either.
Yeah, and the Metro is such a reputable piece of journalism. Any paper, who has Lindsay Lohan every fucking day in their supposed entertainment section is not worth my time of day.
they still print that?
haven’t seen the metro goons around in a while so I assumed they folded. not worth the paper it’s printed on, recycled or not.
I like the free crossword and sodoku.