TTC drivers caught texting behind the wheel.

[funkififer]

The TTC is under fire again after a bus driver was caught on camera texting while driving, and another while stopped in traffic. The Toronto Sun printed a picture Friday of a driver on his phone while driving a bus full of passengers. The speedometer indicated the bus was in motion.

Meanwhile, a CP24 viewer sent in a photo (pictured above) on Tuesday of a driver on their BlackBerry while operating the 54 Lawrence bus. "We started driving and I noticed that (the driver) took out his phone," says Alexia Schell. "I thought maybe he was checking the time but no, he kept texting.".

TTC spokesperson Brad Ross says swift action will be taken against the employees.

"These are very serious issues of public safety," Ross says.

"We need to re-enforce, obviously, with some of our employees, the importance of not using your cell phone while operating,"

Ross says the driver from the Toronto Sun photo has been identified and is facing potential disciplinary action. Using a handheld electronic device behind the wheel has been banned in Ontario since 2009. Ross says the TTC already had a long-standing policy against the use of mobile phones while on the job.

The person who snapped the photo in the Sun told the newspaper that they were both angry and fearful of what was going on. They also said the TTC employee was using his forearms to steer the coach.

http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110128/110128_ttc_driving/20110128/?hub=CP24Home

 

[Yadira from LA]

I can see it now... suspended with pay... and will have a nice lil paid vacation until some union lawyer gets him off!

:roll:

 

[unboundedjoy]

He can join the others that sleep in their booths .

 

[iguessifuwant]

Can't believe he was driving with his forearms. The nard was driving paying customers. I say he gets fired for sure.

 

[Dogshowfreak]

exactly. You can bet your last dollar that nothing will come of this......except maybe the union might say to the drivers: don't do this.

Any one know what happened to that one who was driving drunk?

 

[Rooster]

Curious as well.

 

[mike21687]

Oh come on guys! I guess none of you have never done "anything wrong" while on the job??

Sure he deserves to be reprimanded and I'm sure he will be but to demand his job please give me a break.

I find it disgusting that everyone is with cell phones in hand ready to snap a shot. Maybe the next time it will be some douche waiting on the floor where they know an incall is and "snap" you're now on candid camera and in a news clip showing how you frequent and support prostitution.

One more thing, if you hire a lawyer to represent you and pay him his fee do you not expect him to defend you at all cost and pull off all the necessary tactics to get you off?? If the answer is yes, then who the fuck do you think pays the union dues, the public and private sector or the employee paying his monthly union dues? The UNION has to represent the employee who pays the fee, that is why they get PAID.

I'm ranting but one thing I hate more than a dog fucker employee are nosy body bitches that think they now are investigative reporters because they have an iphone and want their 15 minutes of fame!!:grrrrrr:

 

[Pompal 09.]

http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2011/01/28/17072476.html

Alexia Schell couldn't believe her eyes: A TTC bus driver texting on a BlackBerry while driving through an intersection. It was Tuesday afternoon, and Schell was on the Lawrence 54 bus with her one-year-old son as it was pulling out of the Lawrence RT station in Scarborough. The bus stopped at Lawrence Ave. and Kennedy Rd, and the driver pulled out a BlackBerry and allegedly started texting.
The driver looked up periodically, caught the green light, and accelerated through the intersection,

Schell said, adding the texting did not stop. She took a photo of the incident.
Schell's snapshot is the second photo to surface of a bus driver texting this week. Texting and driving has been illegal for all drivers in Ontario since October 2009.

“For a good 10 minutes for that bus ride, he was texting,” Schell told the Sun on Friday. “He would pull it out of his pocket, text a bit, put it back in his pocket, pull it out again and text. It was like he was having a conversation.”

The driver steered the bus with his forearms the whole time, only looking up at the road periodically, Schell alleged.

 

[Elana A]

the difference here Chunky is that most of us don't have 100 lives at risk if we make that mistake. Couple that with the fact that it's against the law and you have a double whammy.

For eg: If I get caught breaking the law at my job, I should expect to lose my job. No argument there.

Sure, we've all done something "wrong". Sometimes we take a little longer break, dawdle a bit in the lunch room etc. But none of these actions or errors in judgement put anyone's lives at risk.

Now more applicable to me: I'm self-employed. I do some minor electrical repairs etc. If I mis-wired a circuit that resulted in a dangerous situation then yeah, not only should I be "fired" but I should be criminally charged as well.

For eg: When I bought my house, I wanted to swap the POS dishwasher with my fancy maytag. So after posession I set out to do just that. When I took off the kick panel I found:
The electrical connection was NOT inside the provided junction box
The electrical connection was simply the wires twisted together covered with electrical tape
The electrical connection was just lying on the floor
The ground wire was wrapped loosely around one of the adjusting feet.

Now dishwashers are prone to leakage and often when removing a pot etc that has filled with water, you spill some. Or when you wash the floor, maybe you use too much water and it gets under the appliance.

With the electrical connection so poorly done two things are possible:
If there was a leak, the water would contact the live wire and electrically energize the entire plumbing system. If someone had gone to wash their hands, take a shower, wash dishes, they could have been electrocuted.

Dishwashers require a solid ground contact. Otherwise, many will attempt to use the plumbing connection to ground. Because the ground was so poorly attached, the unit could have used the plumbing to create a ground and, once again, energized the plumbing system.

The family who owned the house before me had a 6 month old baby. If any of the above happened, mom could have had the baby on her hip and if she went to wash her hands, the baby would be D E A D.

I asked the sellers R/E agent to have the previous owners contact me so I could find out who did the install. If they had? I would have gone to the police to inquire as to criminal charges.

This wasn't a potentially dangerous situation, this WAS an extremely dangerous situation that I'm surprised didn't result in someone's death. No different than the bus driver..........

 

[Gustavo]

Unbelievable.

Yet, the culture of today is that no one is ever responsible for their own actions.

 

[the doctor of thugonomics]

As far as breaking the law it's equivalent to a speeding ticket. I guess every truck driver or commercial driver that from now on gets a speeding ticket or runs a stop sign should be FIRED. Come on give me a break! OH WAIT, maybe OMG maybe he wasn't wearing a seatbelt either!! CALL OUT THE NATIONAL GUARD!!!

I use to drive a truck many moons ago and I was able to multi task while I drove. I use to shave, talk on my CB, eat a donut and sip on a coffee and get this, the amazing thing is I had a spotless record.

Again I would love to see what most of the ones that complain actually do that they shouldn't be doing. How does that old biblical saying go "He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone" yeah that's it.

 

[cassandras_evil_sister3]

yeah, chunky, ...just because everyone does it doesn't make it right.

And the difference being you were driving a truck, he was driving a bus load of people. If I had caught you shaving while driving a bus load of people around? You should be fired on the spot and charged. EOS.

As I said, and the point you fail to acknowledge is that while most of us make errors in judgement that might cause a company to lose a couple of dollars, THIS error in judgement could cost INNOCENT people their lives......

Here, just in case you're too dense to know the risks involved:

[video=youtube;R0LCmStIw9E]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0LCmStIw9E[/video]

Pay particular attention at the 2:10 mark.....YOU could have caused that to happen and so could the bus driver......

and:

[video=youtube;OJyU3h0dNT0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJyU3h0dNT0&feature=related[/video]

and:

[video=youtube;dCHdZxO4_tQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCHdZxO4_tQ&feature=related[/video]

 

[big bob]

Oh btw chunkers, it isn't the equivolent of a speeding ticket, it is equal to driving while intoxicated...

"one study, done in Britain, also found that texting while driving was more dangerous than driving under the influence of marijuana. The Royal Automobile Club Foundation, part of the British version of AAA, commissioned a study comparing the driving skills of drivers who were sending or receiving text messages; drunk; or high. Reaction times for the texters in the study dropped by 35%, while legally drunk drivers saw a 12% drop and drugged drivers saw a 21% drop. In addition, texters were a staggering 91% more likely to drift out of their lanes, as compared to 35% for the cannabis smokers.?

In fact, 3 times worse than driving drunk.

So I guess you're also ok with that driver that was caught drunk behind the wheel of the bus or are you ok with drunk driving in general?

 

[xdkirbyxd]

That pretty much clinches that debate.

Dude should be fired no question.

 

[DoppolyKonson]

Not according to our chunky lover.....

You have to wonder, how would chunky feel if an airliner he was flying on was piloted by someone who was drunk? Or how about a schoolbus full of kids?

Just one more thing chunky:
It used to be "ok" to drive drunk, and many people including myself, did it when I was younger. Just because I did it doesn't make it right.

It also used to be acceptable to use Asbestos as a fire prevention material. They banned its use due to health reasons. Just because we used to do it doesn't make it right.

They used to marry off daughters at 12.....just because they used to do it doesn't make it right.

Women didn't have the right to vote. Just because that was the way it was doesn't make it right.

 

[Barb Outhere]

The biggest difference in my mind is the fact that a bus driver or even a cabby is responsible for the safe delivery of his occupants. That in my mind is the main reason I believe this bus driver should be severely reprimanded. If not fired at least a very long suspension without pay and a second offense should result in an automatic dismissal.

I am also a big supporter of having every bus equipped with security cameras.

 

[srikanth]

JJF: you got it. That IS the point. It's not like he's delivering a load of lumber or Toilet Paper.

Passengers expect and deserve to have a driver who is well trained, alert, responsible, sober and unimpaired in any fashion. They are well paid and have benefits up the yin yang and should respect what they're doing and who they're charged with.

 

[happygirl]

Lecture him, suspend him without pay, but I wouldn't fire him if his record is otherwise unblemished.
I think this is an action that can be corrected, most drivers need a slap to shake them out of their bad habits.

 

[Clever nickname]

I bet the union has rules that say you can't do that.

You wonder if there is a rule that limits or ?? the amount of driving infractions a driver can have?

At the very least he should be charged with using a cellphone while driving. At the most he should be shit canned.

Somewhere in between is something more appropriate.

But as we know, the unions are there to protect him and I bet not a thing will happen to him. THAT would/will be the true crime in this instance.

(I know I have a hardon for people who use cellphones/text while they're supposed to be working. I had a number of guys working for me and everytime I turned around they were texting or had the cellphone in their ear. I put my foot down and said: the next person I catch with a cellphone in their hand, NOT on break, will be fired. I'm not paying people to chat plus they were using power tools....)

 

[Yhyamhmd]

AH HA so you admit it! You have an unfair biased because of your own experiences with employees that enjoyed giving you the gears. It probably went down something like this.

Jim- eh Bob, look at tight ass watch him flip, put the phone to your ear.

Bob- Yeah that fucker thinks his shit doesn't stink, you pretend to text lets make that little vein on the top of his bald head start to thump!

Jim- by the time we're done with tight ass he'll be ready to move up north and hump white tailed deers instead of hookers.

Bob- yeah bud let's do it!!
:na::na:

Like I said he deserves to be reprimanded but not fired, that's all I'm saying!