"If you are in danger and your life is threatened" . Part 1/2

   • "If you are in danger and your life is thr...   - Explanation
Things in order:

It is an bylaw offence to activate an emergency release without a valid reason. The clue to what are a valid reasons is in the name emergency, missing your bus/bus stop is not an emergency no matter how great your ego and sense of self importance!

1. I picked all passengers and closed the doors. Then I checked my mirror for anyone running. From here on is the point of no return and opening the doors second time can cause me to lose my license and the company to be taken to court if there is an accident at the offside or the nearside.

2. I checked my mirror and Indicated that I am leaving the bus stop. This is called "point of commitment". Where you are committed to depart the bus stop and must focus on your offside. The car behind the bus stopped, so I was given clear way to depart. The traffic lights were red for some time, so green was coming in few seconds (I know since I drive there multiple times per day).

3. At this point the passenger knocked at the door, which is not allowed in London as it may distract the driver, who must be focused on leaving the bus stop and entering traffic safely. The traffic lights changed 1 second later and I departed.

4. At the next set of traffic lights I stopped at red. The passenger that knocked on the door come to the front door of the bus and used the "emergency door release". This was improper use of the emergency door release button and is actually a major offence. Because I didn't know his intentions I opened all the doors of the bus, to give chance the passengers to escape if this person decides to carry out any sort of attack.

5. After I used the intercom two other passengers made comments, disregarding the actions of that person and attempted to tell me how to do my job. Speaking to the driver of a bus is prohibited unless the bus is stopped safely at a bus stop. So at this point I have 2 more people and 2 minor offences as well as the major one.

6. I made decision to protect my driver license and the company from been taken to court if an accident happened, because of these people distracting me. My decision was to remove the distractions/offenders.

7. Knowing that it's peak hour and the police response for emergency will be 10+ minutes if I am lucky and knowing that the maximum time I can stay with passengers on board on a bus stop is 3 minutes I made a decision. Terminate the bus as none of the offenders will have left the bus in less than 3 minutes, since there is none on board that will speak to them.

8. I need the passengers to request another passenger to leave the bus, since I am not allowed to ask people to leave the bus. Since nobody will ask them to leave I terminated the service after informing the TFL of my decision.

You will notice the TFL didn't said a thing or try to negotiate. Driving by the rules is my primary job, negotiating with passengers is not my job. The police is called to enforce the rules if needed. I didn't call the police, since I was actually affected by the speech of the person. I knew he will not escalate. The passengers will leave at some point and I also needed couple of minutes to regain my focus, before I continue driving.

This is a very complicated situation. There are multiple people making demands/pressure on the driver. It's peak hour and it's very busy. 9/10 drivers will keep driving, because they are afraid of losing their job or don't know their rights or the rules properly. However the passengers got that 1/10 drivers on that trip that is not afraid to make difficult decisions within seconds and carry them out to the end. I hope these passengers meet me again. Usually I look them in the eye, waiting for them to say something nasty, but so far they just tap their card and go take a seat.


DO NOT TRY TO IMITATE WHAT I DO AS YOU MAY BE IN DANGER. I AM TRAINED IN ASSESSING AND HANDLING THREATS IN THE PUBLIC.

Enviro200 MMC bodied Alexander Dennis E20Ds