Bus paint man fury
If you've never seen the wonderful Angry People in Local Newspapers blog, do go and have a look. It describes a type of local newspaper story - someone is angry about something, and is standing pointing at something or with their arms folded looking at something - which occasionally trickles through to the national press. Generally when it does go national it's because it ticks a couple of boxes - jobsworths and health & safety, for example, or political correctness to complete the set.
The story of pensioner Brian Wakley, refused entry to a bus because he was carrying a tin of paint, is just such a thing. Here's an angry person in a local newspaper - his local paper, the Bournemouth Echo. Look at the photo! He's got a pot of paint and everything, and he looks really angry.
This story has been picked up by our friends at the BBC and the Daily Mail, among others, who have, well, they've changed a couple of paragraphs or something, and it's suddenly a big deal. Except... I couldn't help thinking I'd seen something like this before. Is it really a surprise you can't carry a tin of paint on a bus? I'm pretty sure I already knew this. Ah yes:
There we go. Same story. Pensioner... paint... stranded... walk home... picture of him looking angry with a pot of paint... but that was the Liverpool Echo from 2008. Seems it didn't 'go national' that time - maybe there was some real news about something important going on at the time - but I do recall the story, and I wasn't living in Liverpool... maybe it made it onto the radio or something. Or maybe I'm thinking of another story back in 2008 - when a 'health and safety row erupted', according to the Northern Echo, when a man wasn't allowed on a bus because... yes, you've guessed it.
Maybe these are all isolated incidents and most of the time you're allowed to take the bus with tins of paint or anything else you like, and it's just a handful of evil bus drivers who, for some kind of health and safety-related nastiness, decide not to let paint-wielding passengers on. Or maybe this kind of story happens all the time. This letter in the local paper in Leicester might suggest that bus companies everywhere are a bit averse to carrying paint around all over the place, and it's not an isolated incident.
So you have to ask: is it really news? Two minutes of searching on the internet finds examples from Dorset, Newcastle, Leicester and Liverpool of people not being allowed paint tins on buses. Maybe this is just one of those stories that keeps on happening, because it's not a rare event at all, and maybe there are pretty understandable reasons for not letting you on the bus with a tin of paint. Ah, but that would deprive us all of another angry person in a local newspaper, and another example of health and safety supposedly gone mad, wouldn't it?
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February 14th, 2010 - 12:10
To be honest, having had a couple of similar inexplicable run-ins with the bus companies around here, I’m inclined to believe the “people are usually allowed to carry tins of paint/evil bus driver” theory.
I commute by bus every day. I used to take a travel mug of coffee with me every single day – along with a few other passengers – without incident or complaint, until one day – after over a year of this same commute – a bus driver told me I couldn’t take the coffee on board. I spoke to Stagecoach (who run the buses here) and was told that, “Eating and drinking on buses is not permitted. Signs are posted on every bus to this effect, and you should be aware of this. This is a condition of travel which you can find in the bus station”. The problem is that there were (and still are) no signs prohibiting eating or drinking on buses, there were (and still are) no conditions of travel posted in the station and, on further enquiry, no actual Stagecoach policy prohibiting eating or drinking on buses. The bus driver made it up, and the Stagecoach tried to pretend that every bus driver I’d had for over a year had just been flouting non-existent regulations.
A year later, this happened to me again. This second time I knew what the Stagecoach’s policy on drinks on the buses were, so I knew the driver was making it up. He refused to let me on the bus even when I poured the coffee out, and refused to give he his driver number for me to reference when making a complaint — the driver was basically refusing to let me go to work purely on a whim. Again I complained to Stagecoach, and again they tried to claim that it was Stagecoach’s policy that food and drink is not permitted on the bus, and that this policy was posted on every bus. I can only assume that Stagecoach’s complain department doesn’t journey on buses as that was still a blatant lie. When I eventually spoke to the head of Stagecoach Basingstoke, he told me that drivers can – and often do – just make it up as they go along, and that Stagecoach do not have any posted terms or conditions about what can and can’t be taken on buses.
So I’m rather inclined to believe that this is something that really does happen from time-to-time. With regards to paint specifically, there is no regulation that prohibits carrying paint on buses (there is one in Oxford that prohibits carrying petrol though), but I would not be the least bit surprised to find that drivers around the country are blissfully unaware of this, nor would I be the least bit surprised for a bus company spokesman to defend the wrongful actions of a bus-driver, even when they know the bus driver was talking complete crap.
February 14th, 2010 - 12:57
I lived in the North-east where the buses are run by Stagecoach and the buses in Sunderland have signs up stating that eating, drinking and smoking are not permitted. I’m not defending them, just saying the policy may vary around the country. For all I know, the Stagecoach buses in Newcastle might serve draught ale on demand
February 15th, 2010 - 22:53
Same deal in Middlesbrough, the buses have the no eating/drinking signs.
The Newcastle/draught ale theory would also explain a few things.
February 14th, 2010 - 12:46
My boyfriend is a bus driver and he will often dismiss customers for carrying paint or flammable liquids.
His point was this – IF he had been, say, been carrying it in a large, opaque plastic bag, he would ahave probably got away with it. It’s only when people just carry them around willy-nilly, swinging them about that they get themselves caught.
I love the way this man keps on going on about bing a ‘pensioner’ – like that matters…For fucks sake, he doesn’t even have pay to get on the bus anyway… Pensioner or not, the rules still apply.
February 14th, 2010 - 13:48
I’ve never heard of not being able to take paint on buses. Mainly because buses are full of scary people so I prefer to take the train.
BUT. This is stupid. What if you don’t have anyone to pick you up? And anyway, you’ve got to drop the tins of paint pretty hard for them to crack open. I’m afraid I’m on the side of the outraged person for this one.
February 14th, 2010 - 23:04
I live near Speke and have bought paint from the same B & Q as the guy in the Echo and got the bus from the same bus stop. There are signs (albeit quite small) on the buses that say passengers aren’t allowed to take paint on board but I have never had a problem. Saying that, after reading that story in the Echo I took the precaution of putting my pot of paint in a bag so the driver couldn’t see it – just in case I encountered the same driver! As baldywilson says, some drivers are jobsworths, others aren’t really arsed about implementing rules and regs.
February 14th, 2010 - 23:05
Dog above! The comments on that story are something else…
Why not put the paint in a bag? In fact, why not put the old bloke in a bag?
February 15th, 2010 - 22:52
Why is it always “Banned” was he told he was never to allowed on another Bus in his lifetime?
August 4th, 2010 - 20:21
I’m a bus driver and we have the same rules at First. If I see you carrying a tin of paint I will not let you on. Same goes for fireworks (they’re classed as explosives) open food, open cans (bottles with lids are fine… I’ll also let you on with a covered hot drink) Ice cream, milkshakes and anything that will make a mess! I’ve HAD spilled paint on a bus… It had to go away to specialist cleaners! I am following the rules of the company I work for… If I ignore them and something gets spilt, not only will *I* get into big trouble but it will be ME that has to clean it up! And yes. There ARE notices on our buses about food and drink.
Not ALL bus drivers are awkward for the sake of it. Some of us just want to do the job and go home with a clean work record.