Boston, MA – The video is almost boring on one level: 10 minutes of a guy tearing paper bus tickets, yawning, and at one point, fiddling with his cellphone.
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But the unwitting star is a Peter Pan bus driver, responsible for carrying dozens of passengers from Boston to New York on a rainy April morning. The auteur is a worried passenger, filming it all on a Blackberry camera and then broadcasting it on YouTube.
Peter Pan managers, after viewing the video yesterday afternoon, said the unidentified driver appears to be breaking at least two company rules – using his cellphone and taking his hands off the steering wheel to tear tickets – and faces unpaid time off and possible termination. He has been identified internally and put on leave while managers examine his record and set up an interview with him and his union representative, said Chris Crean, vice president of public safety and security for Peter Pan.
The Globe’s attempt to reach the unnamed driver yesterday afternoon through Peter Pan and his union was not successful.
Crean said it was the first time he has received such a video from a passenger. But still pictures from cellphones have sparked other investigations at the company in recent years.
In an increasingly digital world, bus, train, and subway drivers are more likely than ever to get caught flouting the rules, as everyday technology empowers passengers to play safety patrol. Last week, a student in Clinton videotaped a bus driver using a cellphone to send a text message. The driver was fired, his story on the nightly news. The next day, MBTA General Manager Daniel A. Grabauskas encouraged public transit passengers to make similar reports as he announced a crackdown on cellphone use following a May 8 Green Line crash. The driver in the crash told authorities he was text messaging his girlfriend.
The Peter Pan video was made last month by Shelomo Alfassa, a Brooklyn man who takes a bus between New York and Boston almost every week to visit his girlfriend. He did not set out to make a video, he said. But from his front-row seat, he noticed the driver folding and tearing tickets, both hands off the wheel and eyes apparently not aimed at the road. He noticed a cellphone call, even as the driver maintained highway speeds alongside tractor-trailers.
He said he called Peter Pan from the road and reached someone who sounded so concerned that she uttered a curse word. But he thought that the woman did not seem likely to intervene to stop the behavior, so Alfassa started filming on and off with his Blackberry, capturing about 20 minutes of footage over the four-hour trip, he said.
He tried to find company officials when he got to the terminal in New York and even called after the trip, but got nowhere, he said. Some of the attempts, he said, were with Greyhound, which books service on the route jointly with Peter Pan under a pooling agreement, but does not have supervision of Peter Pan’s buses.
Robert Schwarz, Peter Pan’s executive vice president, said he cannot find records of the first call and would have initiated an investigation sooner if the company had been aware of a safety complaint.
“We don’t want a renegade out in the road doing the wrong things,” he said.
Crean said there is “obviously some gap we need to fix if complaints about our drivers to Greyhound aren’t getting forwarded to us.”
Alfassa was frustrated by the bureaucratic hoops he seemed to be going through and was especially worried that he could not reach someone to complain before the driver, who he believed was sleepy and distracted, made a return trip to Boston on the same day.
After letting it go for a few weeks, he sat down a couple of weeks ago and spent four hours editing the video, putting in captions describing the behavior he found most egregious: “Driver removes his hat, and again yawns, rub his eyes, and stretch in his seat. Then, he either is texting or reading e-mail on his cell phone.”
Yesterday, Alfassa sent a link of the video to Peter Pan executives, law enforcement officials, and the Globe.
“My goal is not to get this guy fired,” Alfassa, said. “My goal is to get these guys, as a corporation, to be responsible.”
Through most of the video, the driver appears unaware that he is being filmed. Only near the end of the trip, after snacking on a bag of chips and drinking a soda, does he look back. That was when Alfassa stopped filming.
So many drivers are guilty of doing the same thing. If a surgeon were texting or making phone calls during the actual surgery (maybe this goes on in the OR too.)
there would be a public outcry. Yet when 90 percent of drivers do this, they get a little summons. Texting and dialing on a cell phone while driving are very distracting.
If you don’t consider your own safety we cant stop you, but at least consider someone else’s safety.
I wish I had taped my bus driver today who was on the phone most of the ride.
btw Shelomo Alfassa, is he jewish? then it makes alot of sense,
why didnt he sue the bus company?
Text messaging is the worst, as someone is not watching what is going on while they are lookung at the screen. I sometimes see people busy text messaging while crossing the street. Crazy!
The driver deserves to be canned. The video is boring but I assure everyone if this video captured an accident because of the actions we see on the video everyone would be screaming for his termination including the nightly news stations.
Somoen posted a stat a long time ago about 7 out of every 10 drivers yapping or texting on the cell phone while driving in New York.
What will it take for people to use their brains and concentration while driving?
i have asked my legislators to make the fines 1,000.00 for each cell phone violation and I am told that they are thinking about rasing the fines.
When speaking to my legilator I even proposed that the third time someone is caught talking on a clel phone his/her license suspended for 10 years.
If these laws passed we would never see cell phone accidents or reckless cell phone drivers.
I rest my case!
there is out here in brooklyn a private bus company (i wont write out the name) that are making letzanes from its passengers, i wish somone could video tape them to get them out of business,, ( u can find enaugh crazy things by there drivers)
How many times do i see our Chasidishe drivers from all yeshivas talking on their cell phones while dropping off and picking up nursery and kindergarden kids…How much nisim does every driver see every day while passing thru Boro Park…I called one Yeshiva Bus manager and complained and he told me if i Dont have the drivers name there is nothing he can do…Keep up with those cell phones…
I’ve got a question. Couldn’t the passenger discreetly comment directly to the driver? With so many governmental intrusions into our personal lives along with its inevitable ham-fisted responses, a little personal courage would go a long way to forestall the creeping insidious erosion of personal liberties. People hate a rat with reason even though they may not know to articulate their reasons.
The worse danger of all is the busdrivers on the service to the city from Monsey. Some of these drivers seem to be totally aborbed in cell phone conversations, and thier loud conversations are especially obnoxious when we are trying to daven or learn on the bus.
the driver did nothing wrong. this is a clip thats put together from over 4 hours of actual driving and he found 7 minutes.
Yawning since when cant you yawn and drive?
Obviously this tuchus has an agenda or needs a life.
This bus driver has accepted responsibility for the safety of the passengers he’s driving.
You better bet he has to have hands on the wheel and eyes on the road at all times!
just watching 3 minutes of the video so far is enough to scare me. its not only for one second that he looked away, buts its most of the time. that is bad and he deserves to lose his job with that. His bus is so big and he treats it like a stroller that just glides down the road.
I see plenty school bus drivers talking on the phone while driving kids to and from school. The Williamsburg /BP buses also have drivers who are constantly talking on the phone while driving. I called the comp. to complain and it didn thelp.
Dear Shelomo Alfassa, what goes around comes around, I watched this video the driver is tired you are right… but he is not doing anything like talking on his cell phone, you don’t have any business to put this clip on you tube, i am sure when YOU are driving you are also eating and “blowing your nose” !!! Come on this posting on you tube does not make sense at all.
I have been a bus driver for 30 years. I watched this video and his driving is fine. Show me one driver who keeps his 2 hands on the wheel at all times. some passengers just need to sit in the back and read a book. mighty boring to sit on a bus for several hours and this guy was having fun with his camera. got plenty of attention now. probably some young punk who never drove a car. what people will do for their 15 minutes of fame!
My main concern was his obvious fatigue. An alert driver who preoccupies himself with distractions during driving is at risk of a possible accident, so a tired driver , on a long distance trip no less , increases that by 10 fold! The bad weather added to the danger! Even the most cautious of drivers are extra careful when driving in bad weather. But,” Mr. I don’t give a damn about my passengers”, was totally oblivious to his surroundings. Those who commented that the driver is a professional…and that his actions are the norm…you’re just complacent. There are tragedies on public transit because of these irresponsible drivers! Don’t you read the news?? I commend the video but would like to ask one question of it’s producer. If you were afraid for safety, why didn’t you try to speak to the driver. That might have made your case more compelling. Chances are he would not have cared and maybe would have had a few choice words for you.
your out of your mind. there is nothing wrong with the driver so grow up! if you are bored there are many chesed organasations that could use your help. just grow up and start doing something usefull!
Very nice. The Jewish person got the driver fired. Good Job, way to go, great way to make a kiddush hashem! Idiot.
First of all let me say that this driver was COMPLETELY at fault. I too drive for a living taking passengers to destinations all along the eastern seaboard to Canada. Our job requires a 100% attention to watching reckless drivers racing from an entrance ramp onto the highway without paying attention or YEILDING to the traffic flow at hand.
Or constantly watching vechicles crossing the dotted line while they are talking on their cell phone or putting on their makeup. Or how about those maniacs on motorcycles racing and waeving in and out of lanes, darting in front of a moving vechicle with a gross weight over 25,000 lbs.Or better yet those drivers reading a book or newspaper while driving.
Has anyone also taken it into consideration that passengers are a distraction too! I love those people on trips that have to talk louder than the movie playing. Talking on their cell phone about last nights sex romp, coughing , sneezing without covering their mouths getting the rest of us sick.
All I am saying is that yes the driver should be disciplined, But what recourse do we drivers have against rude, annoying passengers or reckless drivers out on the road doing stupid and illegal things why they are behind the wheel putting me at risk!
Do you know how annoying it is to sit on a mototcoach for an extended period of time with kids yelling and screaming while the chaparones sit and do nothing? I myself take a lot of pride ensuring that my passengers get to their destinations on time and safe!
It would help if the rest of you would do the same for all of us that serve you the public too.
thank you
It’s very sad that this Driver (I work for Peter Pan) is terminated over this obviously RE-SPLICED video. I should start video taping all the regular car drivers out there who are reading the paper while they drive, eating breakfast, fixing thier hair, doing makeup, shaving, talking on thier cell phones, texting, and many more things that I see from the seat! Wait, I couldn’t tape them because I would have to take a hand off the steering wheel! Perhaps a mounted camera would work.
I ask this….How many of you have both of your hands on the steering wheel at ALL TIMES????? No one. Everyone is multi tasking while they are driving! This guy lost his job, his career, and his paycheck all because someone had to video him. Peter Pan’s customer service number is a public number. He didn’t try very hard to contact them. They have LIVE people answering the phones. They document EVERY call that comes in. I’ve seen the paperwork they do on phone calls that come in! He didn’t try very hard to get ahold of peter pan. He just ruined someones life.
The strange part is that he waited almost 4 weeks before posting it. Doesn’t seem like that shows very much concern for what he taped. Why wait? If he felt in danger he should of brought it out when it happened. NOT wait until the MBTA accident happened and ride the coattails of the media frenzy. Such a shame.