Brisbane Thugs - two bullies ruin bus ride
Nasty incident on the West End (Brisbane) bus tonight, when the bus couldn't get out of the bus stop because a car was parked inside the bus zone. I didn't see the start of it because I was sitting up the back, but the driver appeared to be talking to someone who refused to move the car. When the driver asked loudly if there had been 'any witnesses' to an threat by someone I walked up to the front of the bus, just beside the driver, with my camera out.
I tried to take a photo of the people who appeared to be hassling the driver, but one of them threatened to 'shove the camera up your arse', so this story is text only (I'm in no condition to fight aggressive testosterone-ridden thirtysomethings).
One of the thugs claimed he was a lawyer, and also tried to pretend that I had committed some offence by breaching his privacy in trying to take his photo. (A complete lie, which I'm sure he knows if he really is a lawyer). I decided to wait until the cops came, partly because every other passenger had bailed out long before. I wanted the driver to have some backup for his side of the story, and I wanted to let him know I was on his side.
While we were waiting for other people (security guards etc) to arrive, the thugs smugly opened the bonnet of the car and pushed it forward a few metres. The driver had already called for backup so he had to stay and explain. I think the thugs were going to try to claim that the car had always been there and that the driver was lying. They also took some cameraphone pix of the bus.
The situation defused - the cops asked what was happening, they asked me a few questions and the usual name/address/DOB stuff, and the driver drove off.
I got off at the next stop and gave the driver my phone number - the thugs had threatened to complain about him (!) and so I said he should call me if he needed a statement to back him up.
It makes me pretty angry that these blokes - who, by the look of them, were a couple of quite successful bullies - are able to ruin things for at least five or ten people. Anyone who gave a damn wouldn't park in the bus zone (how else did a broken down car get in the bus zone near the coner of Vulture St and Boundary St if it hadn't been parked there when it was working in the first place).
Mongrels.
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2 comments:
Sorry for the slow reply to your article, I should probably search for Brisbane bus related stuff more frequently.
I work as a BCC bus operator, and I use buses a lot as a passenger too, and see more and more illegally parked cars around bus stops. Combine this with the generally undersized bus zones around Brisbane, and the legal requirement to not block the traffic and to be close and parallel while stopped at the kerb, and you can see why bus operators get a little pissed off by selfish dickheads who park in bus zones. With the increasing number of people relying on buses for transport, and the local and state governemnts' apparent interest in providing reasonable public transport (ignoring Campbell's hatred of transit and bus lanes), I think a case could be made for a flying squad of parking police during peak hours, with the power to book illegally parked cars, fix or compulsorarily tow broken down cars and enforce bus and transit lane laws. But as they can't even get their arses into gear to enforce the permanent outbound bus lane in Upper Roma street since after it was opened to cars during the Anne street onramp debacle, I'm not holding my breath.
It's not uncommon to see a bit of agro while riding Brisbane buses of the public transport variety. Just recently I witnessed a driver ready to jump off the bus and pummel a passenger who had flipped him off.
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