Don't mess with a bus driver!

Mrs R spotted on this on Fail Blog the other day, and thought it said something about being careful where you park as well as something about bus drivers whose feet might land on the wrong pedal.

She hadn't any idea how to use it, and maybe link to something else. So it was a bit ironic that later the same day she noticed that a lot of other blogs had linked to a video showing how an, as yet unnamed, elderly man who got his arm trapped in a tube train was subjected to some quite horrid verbal abuse by a TFL worker. It's here, and is quite slow to load because there are over 600 comments.

Talking about being caught off guard by London traffic, and using a rather tenuous link, there is of course Boris almost getting squashed by a car after it had been hit by a lorry. It's here.

Mrs Rigby thinks that one particularly interesting thing about all these videos is the list of comments. Fail Blog generates slightly amusing ones; Boris and his lorry got comments about all sorts of stuff including speed bumps and personalities, but nobody seems to viciously condemn either him or the driver.

In contrast the comments beneath IanfromLondon's video are at times quite unpleasant and threatening - and many come from people who claim to work for TFL and who therefore are responsible for running our tube trains. They could of course be lying, trolls are an internet nuisance who cause trouble, but Mrs R thinks there are too many for them all to be spoof comments.

People who work for TFL are meant to be helping passengers (whose fares pay employees' wages) get from a->b as quickly and easily as possible. In short, they're supposed to be providing a service. If a passenger gets hurt surely the best thing to do would be to make sure they're okay rather than push them around, especially somebody who's over 50. There's no sign of the TFL employee checking that the man's arm isn't bruised or broken. No suggestion that he might need help to get onto the next train and be sure of a seat. No offer to take his name and address, or even make a record of his complaint. Instead there's a threat to call the Police, followed by a suggestion that he should be pushed under a train.

You know, sometimes Mrs R is quite pleased she doesn't visit London very often, but even so she's had plenty of bad experiences when using buses, trains and coaches. Too many to mention just now, but she does wish that TFL and other "public transport" employees would realise that they are the public face of the city. They should sometimes look across the Channel where they will see transport that's efficient, clean, punctual and very, very cheap that's run by staff who are helpful and polite and who will mostly speak English as well as their own language.