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Police: Man gets in bus driver's face, causes bus to crash
By adamg on Tue, 10/15/2013 - 10:52am
Transit Police report they are looking for this guy for causing the bus he was on to veer into a parked car on Broadway Street in Chelsea around 9:28 p.m. on Sunday, setting off a chain-reaction collision in which two other vehicles were also damaged.
For some reason, the man didn't wait around for police to arrive. If you know him, contact detectives at 617-222-1050 or send an anonymous tip to 873873.
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Comments
Make an example
The MBTA is going to crucify this guy to make an example. I don't think this will be one of those things where they say, "Have you seen this man?" and then you never hear about it again.
Also, assuming the cars are insured as legally required, can the owners still sue the man who caused this? Or would the insurance companies be filing suit? Just wondering, because this guy is pretty much screwed because of his temper.
I don't know what the argument was about, but the driver closed the doors and proceeded with his route -- so assuming is was about not having enough money, he needed to just chill and accept that the driver just let him on regardless of fare paid or not.
Mother? Sister?
The woman with him looks like she's pulling the standard "I ain't got no money this time ..." gambit, and it looks like he's playing the "you talking to my (mother, sister) like that!" bullshit.
I thought that she was trying
I thought that she was trying to get him to sit down, as in, "Please ignore my drunk, (soon-to-be-ex) boyfriend. Come on honey, sit down." But yeah, she's got a role in this. Wonder who she is.
Also, let me be devil's advocate here. The driver was being distracted, if not attacked, by this guy. Why didn't the driver slow down or stop the bus until he could safely operate it?
Spit and Run accident?
Spit and Run rider on the T. Hit and Run driver on the streets. Terrible. Pulling out from a bus stop and driving distracted during extended negotiations, is a bad idea leading to accidents.
One solution
Just ban all street parking. Nothing for the bus to hit.
And then...
he would plow into a telephone pole -- real infrastructure. Or a house.
Not saying parking is wonderful. It should definitely be paid for a market rate. But hey, pretty neat buffer!
And people would park where, exactly?
The hi-rise garages we'd all like to see dotting the landscape?
Hope you're joking--maybe my sarcasm meter got switched off?
/troll
My work is done.
Come on
You could've said "...and replace all of the parking spots with Hubway racks." ;)
On one side
Hubway racks and bike racks on one side. Add a bidirectional cycletrack in the space formerly used by parked cars on the other side.
And the tofu and kale sandwich/fair trade coffee cart
right in the middle. I'm in.
Lest we forget
Curitiba-style bus stops, with a big tube that people have to pay to enter in order to board a bus that docks with the tube. That would prevent a lot of these "spit on or hassle" the driver over the fare problems.
Yet another brilliant observation.
Do you ever ride the freaking bus? Maybe it's different in Ahhhhhlington but if the bus driver waited every time some whiny drunk/high ahole carried on a conversation with him the system would literally shut down. Half the reason the deadbeats are able to get away with it half the time (as they're pretty clearly doing here) is because the drivers need to stick to their schedule and can't stop and either kick them off or wait while they scrounge pennies or try right different expired T passes.
Agreed.. HOWEVER
Agreed, this looks like it was a 116 or 117 since it was on upper B'way in Chelsea.
I'm sorry but I ride these two buses and the 111 and they are FULL of freaks, addicts, and people not playing with a full deck (okay I might be included in this group, according to some Uhubbers).
Everyday I see this happen, distracting the driver. I kinda feel bad for any one who drives the 116, 117, and 111 because of the amount of truly freaky people that ride and annoy the driver.
BUT with that said and 'staying on schedule', it only takes a few seconds to stop the bus, tell him to get off, or just dispatch Transit Police to come. The dispatcher and most inspectors who are keeping track of time will hear the distress call and not lay into the driver for being late. Plus having everything recorded on that bus does help the driver's issue with not being on schedule.
Trust me, it happens more than you think on these routes. I personally threw someone off the 111 late one evening because he would not leave (nor did i want to wait for T police), and was drunk and was about to hit the driver.
Ugh.
Yeah...there are routes that--well, the drivers should get extra combat pay or something. The nutty thing here is yeah--obv the driver had let them on, was just trying to carry on and this jerk couldn't drop it. But idk...it happens SO often and most of the time they just want to avoid a confrontation--stopping and waiting until the cops show up still leaves too much time for things to escalate. Sigh.
Maybe a Transit Police beat
Maybe a Transit Police beat cop should ride these routes from time to time. Or a cop in a cruiser can hang out at a stop somewhere along the line.
but...
But that would require them to get out of their cars for more than a dunkin trip...
They do. They do ride the
They do. They do ride the buses and trains as part of their patrol but there are only so many officers, especially compared to the sheer number of vehicles the MBTA has in service at any given time.
Sorry but that's a joke.
90% of the Transit Police you see on the North Shore (when you do see them) are sitting in their cars doing absolutely nothing, or cruising Revere Beach Parkway. The Transit Police are a complete joke.
Most officers riding buses
are in plain-clothes. So how do you know this? There's regularly arrests reported as being made by plain-clothes officers.
Devils blah blah Advocate blah blah....
A case could be made that the driver was partially at fault by operating the bus while someone was standing forward of the white line which Drunky Drunkerson clearly was.
why?
why didn't the driver stop driving and deal with the situation first?
Time to turn the handicap
Time to turn the handicap flip down ramp into an ejection catapult. Someone tries to BS the driver and they get flung out the door.
Scum of the Earth
What an asswipe! I feel for the drivers of all MBTA vehicles that have to put up with stuff like this.
Technical Questions
1. Why does the color drop out when the bus begins to move?
2. Is it technically impossible to get a video off of their surveillance system without someone holding a cell phone camera pointed at a playback screen?
3. Do drivers have a panic button they can press when people start giving them a hard time so at least a cruiser is dispatched to follow the bus if it starts moving or board the bus if it is still stopped?
RE: 1 - When the door shuts
RE: 1 - When the door shuts the overhead lights go off. The camera likely switched from color to night-vision as a result.
Panic button
Yes, like a silent alarm, it will also change the rollsign display on the front of the bus to something along the lines of "CALL THE POLICE" to alert bystanders.
Transit Police questions ?
I see T-cops all the time from South Station to Ashmont but I have never seen them on the Blue Line or on buses. How many of them are assigned to trains and buses and how many are assigned to office duty
I hope they throw the book at
I hope they throw the book at him (the idiot boarding the bus and threatening the driver, that is).