Walking frame trapped in bus doors as cases of shocking driver neglect uncovered
Shocking video of a Brisbane bus driver slamming his doors on an elderly man's walking frame and hurling abuse at him has emerged in a suite of alarming cases of passenger neglect.
A 7News right to information investigation uncovered video taken at around 8:30am one morning, when a bus driver on Merthyr Road, New Farm was waved down by a senior with a walking aid.
The driver paused the bus and opened the doors. Suddenly, the driver is seen unleashing a vulgar tirade at the passenger because it's the wrong bus.
Shockingly, the driver shuts the doors, trapping the man's walking frame and begins to drive off.
The driver stops, but still doesn't help. Instead, he hurls more abuse before driving away.
Brisbane City council says it will maintain it's hardline approach to rogue bus drivers in response to 7News's investigation.
"Where there are incidents that are simply unacceptable and unexplainable, we take a pretty tough line," Lord Mayor of Brisbane Graham Quirk said.
When confronted, the driver told Council's ethical standards unit that he "had a vague recollection that something had happened but he couldn't recall exactly what it was".
When he was shown the video, the driver's response was "it didn't seem to have hurt him".
"In this case we've had a termination of one of these incidents which was just unacceptable," Mayor Quirk said.
In another incident, a driver was issued a show cause notice after an exchange at Queen Street Bus Station.
In a video, a woman's handbag can be seen trapped in the bus door as the driver closes the door to drive off.
The passenger is then forced to run alongside the bus unwilling to let go until the driver realises what's happening and opens the doors.
He told the woman that "she should have let (her) bag go for safety".
The council found the driver was "rude and aggressive", and negligent in "failing to perform mirror checks" and failed "to apply due care and attention".
He was issued with a final warning.
At Boggo Road, a woman who forgot to swipe off reached back into the bus, but the door was shut on her arm.
She yelled and banged, but the driver kept going.
She was dragged along, only just managing to pull free before hitting nearby barriers.
The driver told his supervisor that he didn't see her.
"It's not the sort of thing we want to see happen, it is certainly not the thing we want to see repeated," Mayor Quirk said.
MORE FOI INVESTIGATIONS:
Disturbing disabled attacks exposed
Reports of child abuse fall through the cracks
