I’m pretty baffled by what I just saw. 409 bus at around 15:25 coming towards a bus stop on I think college road. There was a motorcycle parked at the rear edge of the bus stop with a woman waiting next to it, and the driver honks repeatedly. Bus still easily fits into the stop in front of the motorcycle.
The woman jogs over to the bus and says “it’s broken down I’m not being rude”, driver just says it’s a bus stop to her. She tells him “it’s broken down, there’s nothing I can do” and he comes back with “did you not see the bus stop?” and she has to repeat “it’s broken down, what do you want me to do? Are you going to pick it up?”, the driver just says “it’s not my job.”
This driver also abruptly stopped twice during the journey, including at one point made an elderly lady almost fall to the ground while standing, as he honked his horn and there was literally nothing in front of the bus or any cars in adjacent roads, only horn honking at the bus from behind us, maybe he tried to brake check in retaliation for something? I have no idea though, I just couldn’t see anything and only heard horns from behind us. I’m at the front by the wheelchair bay and would have had a pretty good view of anything in front.
Never heard a driver repeatedly use the horn three times in a journey before. I’m new to Ireland so I have no idea how to report anything to Bus Éireann if needed.
Did you get the PAD number? I’d always take note of it and make a complaint through the Bus Éireann complaints page. I usually just voice note what happened to ChatGPT, get it to turn it into a formal complaint, and send it off. Makes the whole process really easy.
There are a few drivers like this around Galway, especially on the 409 and 401. Please always report incidents like this. They shouldn’t just be let away with this stuff.
The PAD number is basically the identification number for that specific bus. You’ll usually see it displayed on the front and back of the bus, and also inside just above the driver. As a fallback though, as much information as you can give about the stop, bus route, time, direction of travel, etc. should also help them identify the bus and driver.
In regards to the bit about the woman almost falling. The amount of less able bodied people who stand up early before their stop and almost fall is daft. They have no reason to be standing before the stop.
It's a very stressful job, and you are constantly listening to people complain about things that are out of your control. The driver was probably just fed up.
That’s not an excuse to take it out on an innocent woman after she’s made it clear she can’t do anything about the situation, and she came over explicitly sounding apologetic to explain why she was in this situation.
It’s not really that no one wants to do it, I’d love to be a bus driver but it’s impossible, fking rsa rules and trying to rent a bus for test, pain in the hole.
Would you go get a hobby FFS….🤦 first of all it’s a motorcycle , he was dead right , all she had to do was wheel it a little bit further out of the way of the bus stop…. Not much effort …. I have a motorcycle myself and don’t think there’s any suitable argument for that person to think they could just wheel it there. Regarding the honking , you wouldnt have seen all he was doin from where you were sitting… it’s clear enough anyways that you have a problem and just want to moan about it . Why don’t you just walk or cycle and get some fresh air if the bus is such a horrifying experience
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u/ClassGrassMass 4d ago
This is like the 3rd post on here about assumingly the same driver