Hello,
As long term readers will be aware I have endured great suffering on buses. If it's not some dreary racist wittering on, someone is pissing on the floor, fighting or hurling abuse at everyone. Often all at once. If I had children I'd tell them to stay safe by walking home of an evening.
Anyway it would seem I'm not alone. Today's Herald carries a report about the horrors faced by anyone travelling by bus. Nearly everyone who travels on the moving slums is petrified!
43% have witnessed fighting or aggressive behaviour between other passengers, 50% arguments between passengers and 65% have witnessed a passenger arguing with the driver. That is in addition to the drunken behaviour, drug abuse and vandalism that is so widespread.
I am unclear why so many people are incapable of getting on a bus, paying their money and sitting quietly, but they are. Of course the oft repeated and entirely sensible suggestion that conductors should be brought back has been put forward by those surveyed. SPT have unsurprisingly responded by totally missing the point and introducing 122 buses with CCTV installed. So at least we'll have a record of our untimely death, serious assault or that really exciting time we got groped to pass on to the grandchildren.
Cheerio
2 comments:
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Very witty, Clairwil. I guess lonely old folks will now choose to die on a bus, so the video will horrify relatives and social help agencies who have failed them!
I'm sorry to confess that though I was never a vandal or wanton destroyer of property (well, apart from a brief adolscent phase of smashing windows in vacant properties condemned and awaiting demolition) I have been guilty of "alcoholic behaviour" and even what some might call "drug abuse" on Glasgow buses (Arriva only). Sometimes when returning to the boondocks after a particularly jolly night of Frivolity around Glasgow, but perhaps having over-guzzled towards the end before having to catch the incredibly early Last Bus, I have takedn to singing cheerfully some great classic song (Like I Belong To Glasgow or As Time Goes By, just for example), perhaps elven accompanying my bassy voice with lusty percussion played on the unbreakable parts of the vehicle furniture. At other times I enjoy whistling (a la Les Dawson Piano Style) some known local classic like Scotland The Brave, Song of the Clyde or East-Enders Theme doof do-do-doof, in a whistle that hopefully compensates for its tunelessness with its propensity for occasional humorous jazz embellishments and improvisations. However, I have often helped drivers, particularly on the supremely dangerous passage through Govan at Closing Time, to deal with difficult situations like the screaming drunk hair-pulling tussles of the alcholic couple, or unloading some drunk who can't remember where he's supposed to get off.
As to drugs, I refer only to one occasion when I was surreptitiously puffing underhand on a skunk single-skinner, waving smoke away with my other hand, feeling merry and high. The driver, a gorgeous white-shirted beauty with long Scandinavian blonde ponytail - yes, female - stopped the bus and came back to interrogate all the passengers as to who wahs smoking spliff. I was worried as it's a long walk to Paisley for a tired old battle-worn man and it looked like she was in one of those "We're not going on till someone's been punished for this" moods. Without confessing, but remembering several delightful experiences we had shared over her ticket machine, I conveyed to her by eye-language that she needn't expect it to happen again.
Sorry, seems I've gone on a bit. I love Glasgow buses.
I am in total agreement Margin.
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