I’ve been interviewed about ten times from all sorts of different media outlets, including local Boston television, radio, and newspaper media, The New York Post, and a few others (which haven’t gotten anywhere).

However, none of them really seem to paint the exact picture I made. So, I thought, since the media can’t really get a full grasp as to what happened, I thought I’d explain a little. So, here goes.

In response to…

…the situation on the bus.
The way this whole thing got started was when I posted the very same e-mail I sent Peter Pan about my experience. What I said in there I believed to have happened and included my feelings about the situation. I never felt physically threatened but instead just felt annoyed and cheated out of an early ride home. He was punishing an entire busload of passengers because of one of them who happened to complain about his driving. While this is very immature, it wasn’t some sort of act of kidnapping or terrorism or any shit like that, in my opinion. A lot of what he’s said in the media he didn’t inform us (I.E. the stop he could’ve made and didn’t). The driver in question was actually relatively nice to me as he suggested I get on his bus which was leaving a good half an hour earlier than my original bus.

…the swing of the media.
In all of the interviews I’ve given, I’ve told all that I can remember from the event. Of course, they ask me what I think about the situation, and I think they’re disappointed when they find that I didn’t feel physically threatened. When they take the things I’ve told them, they take only the parts that interest them out. For example, today I was interviewed by Channel 7 WHDH Boston, and they asked me a series of questions. Repeated three times was the question “how did you feel about the situation?” as though the answer I had given wasn’t interesting enough. They asked me what I felt should happen to the driver, and I basically said what I’ve said here a few times: He was being silly and immature, but I didn’t feel threatened really. They (or whomever) can interpret that as they may and do what they think is necessary.

…the possibility of the bus driver being fired.
This is one of the top things people either question or tell me their opinion about. “What do you think should happen to the driver?” In response to this question, I leave it completely up to the bus company. I feel what he did was wrong, but I personally don’t believe this is something to lose his job on. In The Boston Globe recently, they stated that “Bryant said the story of the bus ride, which has been reported by other media outlets, has unfairly characterized him as a ‘monster.’ ” I really couldn’t agree more. Again, was he in the wrong? Yes. Was he being immature? Yes. Should he be fired? It’s up to Peter Pan.

…the picture in the Boston Globe.

Let’s not talk about that.

Peter Pan: The People Professionals

To whom it may concern,

While normally I take the Amtrak train between Boston and New York, I decided this last weekend that I’d take the Greyhound bus. I purchased my ticket online and proceeded to the gate. My bus out to New York last Friday was 2 hours late, but the traffic was bad, so this wasn’t my biggest gripe.

However, my 1:00PM ride back on Sunday to Boston on the Peter Pan bus line was an absolutely terrible experience.

When we arrived at our only stop along the ride in Framingham, MA at 4:35 PM, about 20 minutes away from Boston, the people who had gotten their tickets to Framingham walked off of the bus. I was surprised and delighted to see that we were about 25 minutes ahead of schedule and that we would arrive in Boston ahead of time– something I was looking forward to after my previous trip. However, after the bus driver stood outside for 5 minutes to smoke a cigarette, he came back inside the bus and made an announcement:

“Usually,” he said, “on Sundays, I leave right after I drop off the passengers. You’d be about thirty minutes early. However, on the way here, I was told on my radio, ‘are you alright?’ I said, ‘yeah I’m fine,’ and they had told me that someone on this bus had called in and said that I was swerving all over the road and falling asleep.’”

I personally noticed this a bit along the way.

“And, since someone said this, and aggravated me, I’m going to aggravate you. We aren’t going to leave until 5 o’clock [25 minutes from then]. And no, you can’t go out and smoke.”

The driver kept us captive on the bus. Some people voiced their opinions, some even apologizing for whomever called the company that he was swerving. One person said, “I don’t know why you’re punishing all of us for something one person said,” and he replied, “one apple spoils all of the rest.” A woman asked if he could continue “because of the baby.” He said, “What baby?” The woman replied, “my baby,” picked up her child and showed it to him. “No way,” he said, and stood there, staring at us.

The bus driver continued to stand at the front of the bus, glaring at us, the passengers.

Finally, about ten minutes into the wait, one gentleman stood up and said he wanted to get off of the bus and asked the driver if he could get his bags. “No, you can’t,” he said.

He then asked again politely for the driver to get his bags. He still wouldn’t let him. The driver asked if he was going to Framingham, and the gentleman replied that he wasn’t, and he said that he couldn’t let him off of the bus, making up some excuse as to why. He argued for another five minutes to no avail. He was letting no passengers off of the bus.

This kind of behavior by an attendant is absolutely unacceptable. Peter Pan’s slogan is “The People Professionals,” but clearly this is not the case.

While I understand that a bus usually has to wait for the specific time to leave, he explicitly stated that he didn’t need to. But, most disturbingly, he would not let any passenger off of the bus. The mother with her child were forced to stay on the bus until they left, the gentleman wanting to leave wasn’t allowed to, and he stated in the beginning that nobody could leave to smoke at all.

When we left the Framingham station, I was seriously worried about the situation. He didn’t refer to anything he had said and left without saying a word.

No matter what situation happens, the customer should be considered important, whether that means not telling the driver that someone had called, or properly training these drivers to not react in this way to words of complaint. Even if he wasn’t swerving, this type of behavior is absolutely, no doubt, unacceptable for a professional company.

My experience was absolutely disturbing and I plan on never taking the Greyhound or Peter Pan bus in the future, opting to spend more money on the Amtrak lines because of this awful occurrence.

Sincerely,

Brian Moore
brian [at] brianmooremedia.com