http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2011/10/rider_says_trimet_bus_driver_b.html
TriMet is investigating allegations that a bus driver bounced a mother and her baby from a No. 57 bus in Hillsboro on Thursday night because the baby was crying too much, a move that one rider says prompted all of the passengers to get off.
Jennifer Chapman of Forest Grove, who has a 21-month-old of her own, said she was on the bus about 8 p.m. Thursday when the female bus driver got on the loudspeaker and told the woman she needed to make the baby stop crying.
The driver suggested the mother give the baby "some keys or something," Chapman said, and added: "I can't drive with that noise."
Chapman, 31, was riding to her home in Forest Grove from Portland State University, where she is studying for her master's in early childhood special education. She said the baby girl was not crying loudly, and the other passengers began murmuring to one another, disturbed by the bus driver's reaction.
The mother was "nursing her, rocking her, singing to her, shushing her," Chapman said. "The mom wasn't sitting there indifferent."
The driver stopped the bus west of the Hillsboro Transit Center and walked to the back, leaning over to talk to the mother, Chapman said. The mother and her baby then got off the bus, and Chapman followed her. Chapman said she encouraged the woman, who spoke little English, to get back on the bus, but the woman declined.
Chapman said she walked back to the bus door and told the driver that "you can't just kick a woman off the bus because her baby's crying."
"The driver said, 'If you don't like it, you can get off the bus,'" Chapman said.
She and several other passengers did. Then the bus pulled up several feet and stopped again. "Every single person got off the bus, and it was a full bus, with just two empty seats," Chapman said.
Chapman said she emailed a complaint to TriMet that night.
"I don't care if the baby was screaming her head off, which she wasn't, you don't drop a woman off in the dark with her baby," Chapman said.
Passengers called out the number of the bus, Chapman said, encouraging one another to file complaints with TriMet.
TriMet spokeswoman Mary Fetsch confirmed Sunday that a complaint was filed and that the incident is under investigation. TriMet officials will meet with the bus driver this week, she said.
"Obviously, this is something we take quite seriously," Fetsch said.
Fetsch said she wouldn't know until today whether multiple complaints were filed or if the bus had a video camera that recorded the incident.
Drivers can take appropriate steps if they believe safety is in jeopardy, she said, "though I can't say if that happened in this case."
Chapman said the woman told her outside the bus that her baby was just tired. The mother said she was going to get picked up by her husband, Chapman said, then disappeared around a corner.
"I just really connected with this woman," Chapman said. "I've ridden a bus with my baby, and that could happen to me."
-- Scott Learn
Transcript:
http://rantingsofatrimetbusdriver.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-really-happened-with-b...
What really happened with the baby incident. I reviewed the dispatch call on this incident. It appears to me that this driver just had reached her limit and "broke" which is something that happens periodically around here. This is a very hard job and the public has no sympathy at all for what we really have to put up with.
The driver did wrong in the incident, she should have never removed the mother and baby from the bus but when you "break" well, bus drivers are people too.
The following is the transcription of the call between the bus driver and dispatcher. The actual recording will not be released by me or anybody that I know at this time:
Dispatch: Hey * what’s up?
Driver: I have four or five of them calling me a bitch, I had a screaming child on my bus she has been screaming since I left Beaverton, I tried to calm her down and she called her husband and she got off so you know what, I am parked.
Dispatch: OK, so, you have your doors open?
Driver: what was that?
Dispatch: do you have your doors open?
Driver: ya I do
Dispatch: So the person with the kid that was crying, did they get kicked off the bus and that is why people were yelling at you or what?
Driver: Well we tried to calm her down and (unintelligible) and I came up and asked her if she had anything that she could play with to distract her and she didn’t so I went into my (unintelligible) and the mom calmed her down and she got off back here on , what’s it called, what’s the name of the street back here, where you catch MAX , she got off there and then they started calling me F’ing bitch and all this stuff so I said you guys can get off too.
Dispatch: OK, do we know why, what they are upset about?
Driver: Ya they just thought I should just keep driving with this child screaming and I said I can’t drive with a child screaming we need to calm her down, she has been screaming ever since Beaverton
Dispatch: OK, how small of a kid are we talking about?
Driver: she was only about 2, she was upset she had a stomach ache or something I couldn’t get her at all to quiet down or anything, so mom just called her dad.
Dispatch: OK umm, alright, we are sending people to you errrr ahhhh, (pause)
Driver: fine
Dispatch: so the problem people are off the bus?
Driver: sure are, there are a load of people from the corrections center which is where I am sitting
Dispatch: OK if they are off the bus go ahead and close the doors and continue. In the future if there is a baby crying on your bus there really isn’t a whole lot you can do, its public transit, they, we can’t really enforce kids being quiet on the bus.
Driver: it wasn’t just crying, it was screaming all the way from Beaverton and I just finally stopped the bus and said we need to get the baby to stop screaming because I just can’t drive with it screaming because (unintelligible) but that is not safe
Dispatch: What I am telling you is that’s not something we can enforce, if somebody’s kid is crying, you still have to drive the bus.
Driver: I drove the bus all the way from Beaverton to Hillsboro and it gets to where it’s not safe to see, I’m a mother that kind of screaming bothers me.
Dispatch: OK we are not connecting here so I’ll let you talk to your manager about this because this isn’t something that we can enforce.
Driver: Do you know how often this happens? Very rare like once a year or once every two years.
Dispatch: alright
