What should passengers/bus users expect from the driver of their bus?

[P419 EJW]

I do, hence I asked. If you was there, you could have helped the poor school pupil, assuming you are old enough to face them.

[nitromatt1]

I do, hence I asked. If you was there, you could have helped the poor school pupil, assuming you are old enough to face them.

He's a driver at PN

[P419 EJW]

Ok, interesting. Thank you, Matt.

EDIT: I just read Karl's post below. That simply answered my question. I hope the police get the "robber".

[karl724223]

As In many cases the scum had got off the bus after robbing the kid then it was bought to the drivers attention and police were called along with the school in question

[notepanel]

I do, hence I asked. If you was there, you could have helped the poor school pupil, assuming you are old enough to face them.

I would not expect anyone to put themselves in danger whilst doing a 'non-security' job - in todays society it is just not worth it. What I would expect, is that if the driver were to notice an incident occurring is that they would pull over, call the police, and either shout out 'The police have been called' or sound the attack alarm. (This refers to a NXWM driver with a full cab screen)

In this instance, yes it's probably not very nice for the victim, but assuming the bus has CCTV it will be very easy to take action against the perpetrators. It is definitely not worth the driver risking injury/death to themselves by taking on a group of people alone.

A lot of people moan 'why didn't the driver do anything' - but what about the other passengers on the vehicle. In an ideal world, people would stick together and support one another, with the simple fact that collectively they could 'overpower' someone, therefore reducing the risk of further violence or injury. I appreciate where small numbers of people are involved this will not always be possible.     

An example I heard on a coach journey going back several months, was that a young female passenger complained about another older male passenger being inappropriate towards her. The co-driver apparently went to speak to the man, who started attacking this co-driver as the coach was proceeding along the motorway. Yet despite there being 46 other passengers on the vehicle not one of them intervened - it was only when the driver pulled over on to the hard shoulder and went up to assist did the attack stop.   

It is very hard to know how you'd react in such situations (both as a passenger and as a driver) unless you have actually been involved in one. The closest I've been in was travelling as a passenger on a Diamond Bus a few years back, where there was just me and a family (a man, woman and child) on board. From what I could gather, the driver, an Eastern European, had made them pay for the child, as a sort of compromise for the adults travelling on NXWM passes. Unfortunately these people weren't the most intelligent, and before we had even left the bus station were shouting racist abuse and threatening the driver with violence.

This continued throughout the journey and the woman at one point called someone to meet the bus. At this point, I knew I would have been physically useless should violence occur as the man was twice the size of me, I knew the driver didn't know about this call and I couldn't get in touch with the police as I didn't know where they were getting off the bus

As we approached the stop they were getting off at I had 999 keyed in my phone ready to dial it, but luckily the second man had been called to 'control' the violent man and ended up literally dragging him away from the driver.

I'm sure a lot of people on here would say they would have got involved and stood up for the driver - but having been there I know that would almost certainly have resulted in two injured people, rather than what in the end, resulted in none.       

[P419 EJW]

Notepanel, I respect you and that was a very good reply to read. I am sorry that you had to encounter such event like that. I understand what you are saying.

I did not know Karl was a bus driver, unfortunately, I assumed he was a passenger. I admit that was "my bad".

[CL]

I had a driver ask me on Monday after school 'Where are you going?', to quote him. And I have no idea why, but it always seems to be this particular driver who'd like to interfere with us. Simply, we were getting on a bus towards the Terminus of the service, to get back to the City Centre, but he had no need to ask us where we were going, as this may or may not be private information which, nevertheless, we shouldn't be sharing with strangers anyway!  >:(  ::)

[Liverpool Street]

I had a driver ask me on Monday after school 'Where are you going?', to quote him. And I have no idea why, but it always seems to be this particular driver who'd like to interfere with us. Simply, we were getting on a bus towards the Terminus of the service, to get back to the City Centre, but he had no need to ask us where we were going, as this may or may not be private information which, nevertheless, we shouldn't be sharing with strangers anyway!  >:(  ::)

Yeah but if you were going towards the terminus just to sit on the bus for it to go round again, would annoy a lot of drivers. I wouldn't allow it, personally. Well, if I had any drop-back anyway.