GoAhead is the bus company that operates this route on TfL's behalf.
The spokesman added: "We're in the business of safely transporting all our passengers and we seek to do so in a professional manner, with due regard to the law and TfL's rules."Then might I suggest you only hire staff who, when asked to perform their statutory duties, don't have a meltdown at the customer?
Oh, and if you could hire people who can pronounce 'ask' correctly, it might help....
The driver grew frustrated when Mr Stapleton got out his camera and repeatedly asked: "Why are you filming me?".
She then went to ask passengers occupying the disabled space to make room.
When she returned to the drivers' cab, she said: “You’re ignorant and selfish. No one put you in there, but we must show you pity because [of] the law.
“You have no manners. Put it [the footage] on News at Ten because I watch that channel.”What a disgusting excuse for a human being this woman is. And how dim must you be to stand there while someone's filming you and further compound your error?
TfL said in statement that it was appalled by the footage, and apologised to Mr Stapleton.
Claire Mann, TfL’s Director of Bus Operations, said: “We are appalled by this and apologise to our customer. An urgent investigation is underway.
“We expect the highest standards from bus operators and their drivers and something has clearly gone wrong here."I hope by now this woman is an ex-driver.
And maybe another company could be found who'd do more than make a mealy-mouthed excuse when their employees are caught abusing their fare-paying customers?
"Member of a campaign group"
ReplyDeleteHmm. I'm sure he doesn't go around looking for fights like this. That would never happen
I'm inclined to take the same view as Bucko. Fare paying passengers are expected to get off so he can get on. I think I'd react similarly if some self-righteous arsehole started filming me without consent.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete"Hmm. I'm sure he doesn't go around looking for fights like this" -Bucko
https://s1.postimg.org/3bgxmjogtr/DSC_0174.jpg
My crippled kid does...although not in the UK, because guns are frowned on in the UK for some strange reason (for any police men reading, he was in Serbia when that photo was taken, cos the Serbians understand that true Disabled Rights come through the barrel of a gun- to quote Mao Tse Tung -and include the right to shoot stuff) . Another son is a bus driver and he tells me it isn't so much a question of other fare paying passengers being required to "de-bus" (I kid you not!) but that mothers are loathed to fold up their Icandys. Perhaps if bus companies provided complimentary car seats for babies?
As I explained at the time, bus drivers do a job which involves moving a huge and dangerous metal box on the public highway. They are good at being bus drivers and when they have accidents it is rightly investigated.
ReplyDeleteBut they are not law enforcement officers, nor do they have ANY authority to do so, nor are they diplomats which is why they are driving buses rather than going to Oxford and bleeding us white while undermining Brexit.
In picking this fight, this rude and selfish man disturbed the mind of a person who carries a great deal of responsibility and who deserved better than to be bullied.
@WOAR "rude and selfish "
ReplyDeleteYou describe well, the lot of a wheelchair user in our society. As someone whose kid has spent his whole life in a wheelchair I can tell you there are only two 'strategies' wheelchair users can employ to get 'anywhere' in life , namely either; being 'rude and selfish' or 'Tiny Tim'.
I shall illustrate: someone parks their shiny car so far on the pavement to make passing it in a wheelchair difficult, if not impossible. The 'Tiny Tim' will go into the busy road to circumnavigate it, the 'Rude and Selfish' will ...well you wouldn't believe the damage, £lots of damage, auto-lack takes from being sanded down by a carbon fibre, CAD designed wheelchair. I've seen grown chavs cry after Crippled Son had passed, like unto the Angel Of Death over Egypt, by their custom paint jobs.
I spent a lot of time trying to get onto buses with 3 small children on my own, and later with Crippled Son in his wheelchair. As said in my previous post my other son is a bus driver (Who btw isn't overly worried about Brexshite cos he took my advice and got his EU passport renewed), I can really see it from all sides and in this particular incident the bus driveress behaved appallingly and would be sacked in an instant if 1. she wasn't almost as 'entitled', by dint of her race and gender, as the disabled guy and 2. bus companies NEVER have enough drivers. FACT.
Jack - I think Serbians also understand that you cant take rifles on buses and demand a seat, disabled or not
ReplyDeleteSucha a shame that none of the other passengers intervened and told Mrs Nutcase to let the man on.
ReplyDeleteBritain in 2017...
"Hmm. I'm sure he doesn't go around looking for fights like this. That would never happen"
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm sure he does. All the more reason not to be caught giving him one, then.
"Fare paying passengers are expected to get off so he can get on."
No, they aren't. All that is required is that buggies are folded to make room. Having children is a choice, being confined to a wheelchair, less so.
"Perhaps if bus companies provided complimentary car seats for babies?"
Some of the children I see strapped into buggies are far past the car seat stage! I think it's so their mothers don't have to interact with them. Got to get that high score on CandyCrush!
"...a person who carries a great deal of responsibility and who deserved better than to be bullied."
He was asking her to do her job. No more, no less. Eventually, they DID fold their buggies and he was able to get on.
"...the bus driveress behaved appallingly and would be sacked in an instant if 1. she wasn't almost as 'entitled', by dint of her race and gender, as the disabled guy..."
ReplyDeleteSpot on! She should have been dismissed on the spot, as more trouble than she's worth.
"Sucha a shame that none of the other passengers intervened and told Mrs Nutcase to let the man on."
Such a shame that he should NEED to have the bus driver ask in the first place...