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Shabby treatment from London bus driver

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Harlesden

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Three buses pulled up at the same stop one behind another. Four intending passengers approached the third bus - the one at the back. The driver refused to open his doors and pointed towards the bus stop.
This is a common practice among London bus drivers - refusing to allow passengers on or off despite being in a queue of traffic just yards from the stop.
However, in this instance, as the first two buses moved off and it was assumed the third bus would pull into the stop to pick up those four passengers, he didn't. He simple accelerated and pulled away.
Has this happened to anyone else? Is it worth complaining about if the only details available are route number, direction of travel and time of day (no registration number or fleet number)?
 
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Mojo

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lt is worth complaining as l believe in such instances TfL treat these incidents seriously, because it is potentially evidence of a break of the contract they have with their private operators.
 

notadriver

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What bus number was it ?

I caught a bus route 261 earlier today. I asked the driver a question. I'm sure he gets asked many times and to my delight he was nice to me - admittedly I was in uniform. I may write in and commend both he and the driver that took over at Bromley North.
 

34D

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How closely is the time known? I would say definitely complain. Appalling behaviour in my view
 

Andrew Nelson

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lt is worth complaining as l believe in such instances TfL treat these incidents seriously, because it is potentially evidence of a break of the contract they have with their private operators.

You may "Believe" that, but from personal experience TFLs defending shoddy service is legendry.
 

Tetchytyke

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TfL will do sod all. It happened to me with a RV1 bus not so long ago, to say the response from TfL was glib would be too kind.
 

Mojo

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Well not in my first hand experience.
 

bicbasher

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My mother recently complained to TfL by telephone about very poor driving and was given a letter from the bus company affected assuring her that the driver had been reprimanded and was given a warning on his record.

It's the usual 0343 number and and press the option for London Buses between 0800-2000 Mon-Fri.
 

vicbury

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I complained twice to TfL about buses. The first occasion was about the state of Arriva's bendy buses on the 29 as virtually all of them had damaged suspension. That got dealt with.

The second occasion was about the racket coming from Arriva's Volvo Geminis 24/7 on the 253 and 254 due to the engine cooling fans constantly running. In this instance I got a generic response about it being a flaw with the vehicles and within noise requirements etc. I replied pointing out that the same vehicles operated by First and Go-Ahead made no such noise. They again replied telling me the buses operated within noise guidelines. So not so helpful the second time round.
 

Andrew Nelson

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My mother recently complained to TfL by telephone about very poor driving and was given a letter from the bus company affected assuring her that the driver had been reprimanded and was given a warning on his record.

Pull the other one.
 

90019

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This is a common practice among London bus drivers - refusing to allow passengers on or off despite being in a queue of traffic just yards from the stop.

Not letting people on away from the stop is common practice elsewhere too. (Though we're allowed to let people off while queuing for a stop).
Means people can't queue jump by trying to get on the bus before the stop, and means you don't end up unnecessarily blocking the road while loading passengers if the bus in front pulls away from the stop (especially at busy stops served by multiple routes).
 
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Deerfold

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You may "Believe" that, but from personal experience TFLs defending shoddy service is legendry.

Pull the other one.

Just becaue you've had a good experience doesn't mean no one else can have had a good one.

No-one who's had a good experience has felt the need to doubt you.

I know some of the account managers at TfL - if the complaint gets passed to them they will take it very seriously.

I observed a bus refusing to pick people up at a stop whilst stood with an TfL account manager recently. She reported it to the colleague that was in charge of that route and said to me "The annoying thing is that if it hadn't affected me, people would have probably just accepted it and grumbled and we'd have never known".
 
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Andrew Nelson

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Just becaue you've had a good experience doesn't mean no one else can have had a good one.

No-one who's had a good experience has felt the need to doubt you.

I know some of the account managers at TfL - if the complaint gets passed to them they will take it very seriously.

I observed a bus refusing to pick people up at a stop whilst stood with an TfL account manager recently. She reported it to the colleague that was in charge of that route and said to me "The annoying thing is that if it hadn't affected me, people would have probably just accepted it and grumbled and we'd have never known".

Well, just shows the complaints aren't being passed to the "account managers" then.
 

duncanp

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Well, just shows the complaints aren't being passed to the "account managers" then.

No it doesn't. It shows that if people don't make a complaint, then the account managers are not in a position to do anything about it.
 

Deerfold

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Well, just shows the complaints aren't being passed to the "account managers" then.

There are lots of people in customer services. I'm sorry you seem to have had a bad experience with them - I know I've seen letters from some of ours which are poor in the first instance.

However many are much better - I'd suggest Harlesen complains to the bus company and/or TfL and if they are not happy with the response they should let TfL know.

Ideally a bonnet number or registration place will help - but we may be able to identify the bus in question anyway (it largely depends how close the next or previous one was).
 

notadriver

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I think bus driving has very unique challenges far different from other 'customer service roles'. The closest I can think of is a complaints department.
 

Titfield

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Drivers should only pick up or drop off passengers at the designated bus stop even if they are only a matter of yards from the stop and stuck in traffic.

There are a number of reasons for this but the main ones are:

a) the dreaded Health and Safety: if a passenger slips / trips when boarding or alighting from the bus when it is not at a stop then this puts the driver / operator in the wrong and can be the basis of a successful claim for compensation.
b) Traffic Regulation Orders / Route licensing / Road Traffic Acts can / all specify that a bus can only board or alight passengers at a designated stop.

The company I used to work for uses a stop in Baker Street London. This is an exceptionally busy stop and from time to time buses would be queued waiting to go on stop. Drivers would give way to passenger pressure and open the doors about 20 yards before the stop. The residents of the block of flats kept a log of us and other operators doing this and complained to TfL and their local councillor.

We were summoned to a meeting and shown proof of non adherence to our London Service Permit. We were formally warned that unless we followed the rules and regulations to the letter our permit would be withdrawn and we would be reported to the Traffic Commissioner.

Quite simply we have to follow the rules or face the consequences!
 

Andrew Nelson

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Drivers should only pick up or drop off passengers at the designated bus stop even if they are only a matter of yards from the stop and stuck in traffic.

There are a number of reasons for this but the main ones are:

a) the dreaded Health and Safety: if a passenger slips / trips when boarding or alighting from the bus when it is not at a stop then this puts the driver / operator in the wrong and can be the basis of a successful claim for compensation.
b) Traffic Regulation Orders / Route licensing / Road Traffic Acts can / all specify that a bus can only board or alight passengers at a designated stop.

The company I used to work for uses a stop in Baker Street London. This is an exceptionally busy stop and from time to time buses would be queued waiting to go on stop. Drivers would give way to passenger pressure and open the doors about 20 yards before the stop. The residents of the block of flats kept a log of us and other operators doing this and complained to TfL and their local councillor.

We were summoned to a meeting and shown proof of non adherence to our London Service Permit. We were formally warned that unless we followed the rules and regulations to the letter our permit would be withdrawn and we would be reported to the Traffic Commissioner.

Quite simply we have to follow the rules or face the consequences!

But the OP WAS standing at the stop, and the Bus drove past.
 
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