This is really weird because I have never, ever seen a driver in Toronto text while driving. Those TTC drivers are clearly the worst of the worst.
Story in the Star (I'll save you the risk of nausea by posting the Sun version)
I'm hoping that the behaviour of TTC drivers becomes so questionable that Rob Ford will have to increase his inspections of the workers to the point at which he takes the TTC everyday.
[url=http://www.thestar.com/news/article/929736--ttc-to-passengers-don-t-take...'s a second one now too.[/url]
Also, the TTC would rather that people not photograph texting drivers.
Too bad the driver didn't think twice before texting. They keep giving these would be Sun reporters fodder!
I'd love to know what the two drivers were texting.
"Wooooo!!! Im drvng a bus!! LOLZZ!!"
"Im off wrk in 4hrs n thot u need 2 no immedly! Cant wait!"
"Im wearin uniform... what r u wearin baby?"
Just a reminder:
rabble.ca is a public, independent, progressive news and information source. In defining itself as "progressive," rabble.ca embraces a pro-human rights, pro-feminist, anti-racist, queer-positive, anti-imperialist and pro-labour stance, and as such encourages discussions which develop and expand progressive thought....babble is NOT intended as a place where the basic and fundamental values of human rights, feminism, anti-racism and labour rights are to be debated or refought. Anyone who joins babble who indicates intentions to challenge these rights and principles may be seen as disruptive to the nature of the forum.
'yo u herd bout snert on internet?'
'no'
'he psts nonsens lololololllolololololol!!!!!!!111one1111!!'
Also, as an 'SOB' (Son of a Busdriver) I have to say that most people don't realize that they're just one in a line of straight up assholes for 8 hours straight with the only breaks being the occasional kind soul. My dad got so fed up with people trying to catch him breaking rules and such that he gave up on regular transit and started driving special service (to allow for people with difficulties in accessing traditional transit to still be able to get where they need to go). You want drivers to perform excellent customer service? Teach customers how to be treat the people providing them with a service that they clearly need some respect.
right on, PB.
snert, again you contribute nothing, except in this case slander.
I wonder if i start taking pics of the millions of fucking car drivers that text while driving if the Sun will run a cover story and the Star will put it on their website? What about cabies? No one seems to be ratting on them, why JUST the TTC? What about the cops who use a fucking laptop computer while driving?
Just a reminder
Thanks, but I wasn't commenting on "labour". Nor unions, workers as a group, labour rights, etc.
We have photos of two Toronto bus drivers texting while driving, which besides being incredibly unsafe, is also illegal. I would assume that so long as I'm only discussing the two individuals in question, I'm allowed to comment as freely, yes?
While I find it touching that you are so concerned with the illegal driving habits of these two random individuals, Snert, if you want to "comment freely" about the unsafe practices of "the two individuals in question," I advise you to spread your wit around the comment pages of the Toronto Sun.
I'm sorry that you still don't understand this, but I'm not really going to take the time to explain it.
While I find it touching that you are so concerned with the illegal driving habits of these two random individuals
I use the TTC every day, so to me this is a relevant story.
I have also seen streetcar drivers texting. And some of them talk on their phones incessantly. Not only is it a basic safety issue, but unlike most of the idiots texting and driving on the streets of Toronto, they are paid professional drivers.
For the last time, this thread is to be discussed from a pro-labour point of view. That means no random complaints about individual TTC (and other transit workers) poor job performance as if it is some kind of systemic problem ("I take the TTC every day," etc.). This board takes it as its starting point that stories like the one in the OP are exploitative and disingenuous. I would think that's kind of obvious, but sadly, I am often mistaken.
I don't think its healthy for the public to play gotcha politics with TTC workers, but I have to say the ttc workers in Scarborough town center station are some of the rudest I've came across. I tried to be nice to TTC workers , they are people just like anybody else, but in my own experience, many of them give me the impression that they dont give a shit about about the transit users. I personally would be beyond grateful if i 've ever land a job at the TTC. But there are alot of nice drivers as well, its important to just always treat someone with respect, its a 2 way street. Recently, I just began to assume a TTC worker is rude until proven otherwise, because it seems to be my experience, I don't know, maybe its partly my fault as well, because I am feeling bitter and angry at everything blah!
The public sector workers and the private sector workers are so out of touch with each other, and the rich are out of touch with the poor, Toronto is not much a city, just a group of diverse apathetic people happen to be situated close to each other.
The next person to post worker-bashing content in this thread will be asked to stay out of it. This is not a thread to air grievances or complaints about TTC staff. I hope that's clear.
Why is it that TTC drivers are more scrutinized for their "customer service" than any other public employee in the city? Have either of you tried to deal with Child Services, OW or ODSP?
Perhaps the constant onslaught of anti-TTC media is working? There are many professional drivers on the streets of Toronto. I've seen people from all of them use cellpones while driving. I'm sure if any of us took a cab to and from work for the next week we could get some great pics of the cabby talking on a phone. Same goes if the cops gave you a ride to work.
There is an effort to eliminate the TTC union because Toronto is in desperate need of massive transportation infrastructure and people don't want unions getting in the way of that privatization bonanza.
They are trying to bust the union.
I'd love to know what the two drivers were texting.
"Wooooo!!! Im drvng a bus!! LOLZZ!!"
"Im off wrk in 4hrs n thot u need 2 no immedly! Cant wait!"
"Im wearin uniform... what r u wearin baby?"
LOLDriverz! They can has Tim Hortonz.
They are trying to bust the union.
Not sure that's it - part of Ford's agenda is to focus attention away from misdeeds of the province and federal government, towards the micro level, such that "personal responsibility" and "belt-tightening" are all that's needed to correct massive underfunding of this city and its transit system.
Recall that Ford's dad was part of the Harris Tory team that helped create the financial mess Toronto finds itself in. So Team Ford wants to validate daddy's legacy by blaming the city for its own problems, and also curry favour from the province by downplaying the role it plays in TTC's chronic underfunding.
So if there is an agenda at work, it goes beyond merely breaking the union, which would be a bonus for Ford, as it plays to his base. But it's definitely only part of the picture.
By "they" i mean Ford, McGuinty, Harris, the Star, the Sun, all the people who are pro-privatization and who want a piece (or getting paid by those that do).
Why is it that TTC drivers are more scrutinized for their "customer service" than any other public employee in the city? Have either of you tried to deal with Child Services, OW or ODSP?
It's obvious. They're visible and available to have photos taken of them. You'd think they'd have realized that by now and not been dumb enough to get caught texting while driving. There's not much excuse for it. Is this a systemic problem? Probably not, but I suppose we'll see if the texting drivers get fired or not.
[/quote]
This was the top story on CTV's 11oclock news last night and their local news. This is part of an orchestrated effort by media and other business to prove to the public that transit unions are dangerous.
Anyone caught breaking the law should be subject to the appropriate penalties. Anyone. Like others, I find the highly selective focus on just TTC workers to be symptomatic of a larger agenda.* Either Ford wants to break the union a la Patco, or he wants to cherry-pick the most profitable routes and hand them over to Viva, or something similar and effectively gut the TTC and the ATU. A workforce with a decent level of pay will always represent a threat to those wanting to pay the lowest level they can get away with. Hence, they must be crushed.
* I doubt the Sun would be very much interested in truckers texting or on the phone while driving, for example.
Yes, obviously there's a certain bash the workers and privatize the routes mentality at work. I'm not debating that.
What I find utterly bizarre is the complete break in relations between transit riders and transit workers. Transit riders are of lower socio-economic status, on average, than transit workers. The riders rely on public transit. But the workers rely on the support of the riders. Like it or not but if you loose your clientel, they won't give a shit if your job is privatized. The union would be well suited to try to counter the terrible relationship they have with the people who should be their biggest backers. Blame the right-wing all you want for their agenda of bashing the workers, but they're going to do what they're going to do that anyways. That part of the debate needs to be externalized in the wider left-right political discussion. The intra-left discussion should focus on these two questions:
Why isn't there more of an effort to recognize the importance of this relationship? Why isn't there more of an effort to utilize this relationship to promote improved transit?
When it comes to my interactions with transit workers, albeit in Vancouver, I've almost always had no problems with them. There's been only a couple of times (excluding general frustration when a bus is late, or too early) that I've been genuinely peeved at a bus driver (or a transit attendant) and thought they were unprofessional. I've basically been commuting via transit to school, or work, for the last thirteen years. This harmonious relationship doesn't seem to be the case in every city. New York for example, seems to have a similar dynamic to Toronto, where the workers seem to treat the public with contempt and the public does likewise.
Nothing like a simple divide and conquer. TTC riders are worried about the economy, their company closing, losing their jobs, taking a pay cut etc etc and then they see the TTC workers/Garbage workers/Auto workers/Civil servants whom they are told get paid way more than anyone else for anythign remotely the same, cant be fired or laid off and always get raises and benefits no matter what the economy. And they get told this again and again by MSM and politicians so the anger builds
For the last time, this thread is to be discussed from a pro-labour point of view. That means no random complaints about individual TTC (and other transit workers) poor job performance as if it is some kind of systemic problem ("I take the TTC every day," etc.). This board takes it as its starting point that stories like the one in the OP are exploitative and disingenuous. I would think that's kind of obvious, but sadly, I am often mistaken.
Pro labor is fine, but individual TTC workers cannot be allowed to endanger passengers or break the rules. No one is saying that all TTC bus drivers do this stuff, but even one is too many.
For God's sake, they are endangering passengers. So what if 99 poercent of TTC drivers don't do this stuff?
Airline X says '99 percent of our pilots do NOT fly drunk'. Is that OK? WOuld you fly Airline X?
Hi kinky. Stay out of this thread from now on, or you'll be suspended. Thanks.
WHAT ???
You're going to suspend a friend of the labor movement, for daring to challenge your specific idea of what constitutes labor relations..
Screw you then. I don't belong to any forum which silences me or doesn't permit debate.
You really are a vile dictator, you know? This Catchfire is clearly on a power trip, and doesn't want anyone to contradict her. I note most people on this thread have positions more similar to mine.
I don't react well to threats. See ya
Too bad the driver didn't think twice before texting. They keep giving these would be Sun reporters fodder!
Precisely. People like Catchfire are the oxygen that fuels and sustains the right wing. If the right can point at progressives like us and demonize us as people who are willing to allow the endangerment of public safety, then we have done their job for them.
And of course our side divides and attacks each other gleefully. While Reform and PC unite, Catchfire suspends anyone who disagrees with her, sowing bitterness among progressive movement.
This is precisely why Rob Ford runs this city, and Harper runs this country.
Yes Cathfire I hope you realize you are personally responsible for Rob Ford and Stephen Harper
Now that you mention it, I believe its high time the left started creating its own list of convenient scapegoats. But this, I really need to voice an objection:
Catchfire suspends anyone who disagrees with her, sowing bitterness among progressive movement.
Catchfire doesn't deserve to be pedestaled for all of it you know. As far as babble goes, we'd put in a couple of solid years of bitterness well before he arrived.
Hi kinky. I'm sorry you respond to "threats" from the site moderator like a petulant child. However, I won't hold it against you, because I think you have a lot to contribute to this site. So you're suspended for 48 hours, and I genuinely hope you return.
Just so we're clear, babble is a pro-labour web site offering alternative interpretations of world events from a progressive, left-wing perspective. Self-righteously pointing out that TTC drivers don't have the right to put our lives in jeopardy does not qualify. Rather, we at babble take as our starting point that workers everywhere are human and deserve to be treated as such; that their individual job performance should be evaluated by their supervisors and no one else; and that stories like the one in the OP disingenuously seek not to improve municipal transit, but to sow conflict and present negative caricatures of workers in order to dissolve public works and unions. Their interests are those of capital, not of the people. I should also state that this has long been babble's position, long before I became a moderator.
That said, I was once a member of the Ontario PC Youth party when I was 13 years old, so maybe I am subconsciously rooting for the right wing, a confederate among radicals.
You too Catchfire? I was secretary of the executive of the PC youth party when I was like 16
According to this morning's paper, the three drivers that were photographed were fired.
Well there goes the rightwing talking point that public sector workers can never be fired and never have to be held accountable for their actions and have jobs for life etc... (none of which was ever true).
There isn't really much of a story in the end. A couple of bus drivers broke the law and were sanctioned. That is the way the system is supposed to work. I expect that someone driving a bus drunk would also be sanctioned. I suppose there can be some debate as to whether they should have been given a reprimand and/or put on probabtion rather than being fired - but I'm sure that the transit workers union agrees that there is such a thing as being "dismissed with cause" and would not see any problem with this.
Hopefully publicity from this case will be a deterrent to drivers of any kind (TTC, truckers and drivers of private cars) and will show that laws against texting while driving are to be taken seriously.
Someone driving a bus is much more vulnerable to getting caught texting while driving because they are doing it in full view of a bus full of passengers any of whom can take a picture. If someone texts while driving a private car, there would have to be a passenger in the car who decided to act as a "tattle tale"
Well said, Stockholm.
And I'm quite sure that if there are mitigating circumstances, or wrong allegations, the union will defend them as required - without ever condoning actions, illegal or not, that put people's lives in danger.
I can only imagine the disapointment of the punsters working the headlines at the Sun. They probably had 10 or 20 great ones lined up for the coming weeks.
Yes can you imagine the outcry had a "Special Investigations Unit" of the TTC investigated and found that there was too little evidence to do anything about it.
I will again make the point that this is an example of an effort by media and politicians to break the transit union so that when transit is privatized in toronto in the next 5-10 years it will be a more attractive fire sale.
Wow, great story there Doug.
I like the part when the Star reporter starts working with the stats...
Although the girl's injuries are not life-threatening, all three Toronto traffic fatalities this year involved TTC vehicles - 100 per cent so far this year.Statistics indicate a rising trend over the last three years in TTC-related traffic deaths.
In 2008, three of Toronto's 54 traffic fatalities involved TTC vehicles, or 5.6 per cent.
In 2009, four of 48 fatalities involved the TTC, or 8.3 per cent.
Last year, nine of 43 fatalities involved the TTC, for a percentage jump of more than double to 20.9 per cent.
Did you get that? 100% of traffic fatalities this year (or as most people would call january, this month) involved TTC vehicles!
And what about that "jump of more than double"? Clearly a trend has been discovered in the numbers by this hard-working reporter. Four to nine IS more than double! And nine outa 43 is 20.9%! This guy must be on to something if he has all these numbers and calculations. Dangerous! Public transit is dangerous and getting more dangerous!
Just for the fun of it, replace TTC with "Police". So imagine:
In 2008, three of Toronto's 54 shootings were by Police.
In 2009, four of 48 killings were by Police. (note: overall killings down, Police killings up)
In 2010, nine killings by Police. (overall killings down for the second year, Police killings up again)
NOW does it look like a trend to you? Anything a person might worry about? Or would you say it's still just creative accounting?
When police kill people they point a gun at the person's chest and shoot lead into them until they are dead. When TTC vehicles kill people it is often someone slipping and falling under the vehicle (as are most of the cases that have been cited).
But then, analogies and political analysis have never been your strong suit, Snert.
Snert, you're trolling. Stay out of this thread.
Clearly a trend has been discovered in the numbers by this hard-working reporter. Four to nine IS more than double! And nine outa 43 is 20.9%! This guy must be on to something if he has all these numbers and calculations. Dangerous! Public transit is dangerous and getting more dangerous!
The reporter has done well, but there's more work to be done. He hasn't yet found the secret memo from the union president to all members:
Text while driving! Kill customers! Solidarity forever!
Stay tuned.
More like dumb jaywalkers (at least two were jaywalkers that walked out right in front of streetcar/bus), bad road conditions (one slipped on ice and fell into the path of a streetcar) and impatient drivers(seems like this one wanted to get ahead quicker and hit the girl)
So maybe one bad TTC driver who was impatient? And three who were affected by actions beyond their control? The TTC fires you if you get in an accident and its in any way your fault. Have any of the other drivers involved in accidents been charged or fired? Nope
Hope someone got a picture of the scene Steve Munro describes:
Now TTC management is on high alert for drivers using cell phones the unfortunate impulse is to go too far:
Fortunately, he was later reinstated but still loses four days of pay.
Of course, it may all be for nought in the long run. Google has a self-driving car. It's certainly no big stretch to imagine self-driving buses or streetcars.
This was the top story on CTV's 11oclock news last night and their local news. This is part of an orchestrated effort by media and other business to prove to the public that transit unions are dangerous.
Being from the west coast I really don't know about this story so I can only give a general observation.
I don't believe that unions are dangerous and I don't think the public believes them dangerous. They do however lose some credibility with the public if they choose to stand behind their members when those members are clearly in violation of the law and endangering others.
Well there goes the rightwing talking point that public sector workers can never be fired and never have to be held accountable for their actions and have jobs for life etc...
This sound like a description more accurate of politicians than bus drivers.
They do however lose some credibility with the public if they choose to stand behind their members when those members are clearly in violation of the law and endangering others.
And there would be your mistake. Choice doesn't come into it. Unions cannot generally pick and choose which of their members deserve the benefit of their services It's a legal obligation.
And unfortunate;y, most don't get that...Hoorah to tax cuts...Forest for the trees...C'mon folks...
They do however lose some credibility with the public if they choose to stand behind their members when those members are clearly in violation of the law and endangering others.
And there would be your mistake. Choice doesn't come into it. Unions cannot generally pick and choose which of their members deserve the benefit of their services It's a legal obligation.
Did not know that, that is a tough spot to be in when you want public support.
They do however lose some credibility with the public if they choose to stand behind their members when those members are clearly in violation of the law and endangering others.
And there would be your mistake. Choice doesn't come into it. Unions cannot generally pick and choose which of their members deserve the benefit of their services It's a legal obligation.
Did not know that, that is a tough spot to be in when you want public support.
How come? Why does the public rebuke them?
