Bus Photos problem with bus drivers...

[6HP502C]

Pyrrhic victory I think. The bus companies got the bad publicity I expect those who ran to the papers wanted, but they now have the accolade of being "bus perverts" thanks to a national media outlet, which will now go down in history because of all the article archiving tools there are these days. In what way did they think they were not going to have the p*ss taken out of them?

Thumbs down from me - I think they should have just left it.

[Deleted]

Oct 28, 2013 18:52:17 GMT snoggle said:

Oct 28, 2013 16:05:04 GMT @antman said:

And there's me thinking they were doing bus photographers a favour by highlighting this apparent problem, not that I've experienced it. But hey...........don't let the facts get in the way of your bitter vitriol eh?

Why does the report do the photographers a favour? Whenever these reports appear in one of the "red top" papers there is always a subtle undertone that people who take photos of buses (or trains) are bonkers / loonies / deserving of mental health attention regardless of whatever "we do no harm" remarks are made by the photographers themselves. The Mail, of course, played to their personal gallery of "we hate skivers and dole wallahs" by mentioning in passing the fact the guys are not employed. Cue loads of "how dare my taxes pay for this lazy B*ggers". Good old Daily Mail - no mention, of course, as to how the guys do finance their hobby.

I actually don't think these articles help at all - very rarely is there any benefit in raising personal concerns like this to the press and certainly not in the era of online comments which just invite ridicule from people with too much time on their hands and too little grey matter between their ears.

The fundamental problem, on the assumption that the photographers act legally at all times, is the lack of proper bus company management attention to this issue and ensuring bus drivers are properly briefed and, if they breach clear company rules, appropriately disciplined. You only need to see how much enduring goodwill there is for operators who get this stuff right e.g. Ensignbus and also how much money they get in their banks when they do special running days or hold open days. People travel from all over the country to take part and buy rover tickets. The "normal" general public also seem to enjoy these days too - plenty of non enthusiasts enjoyed the Metrobus open days from what I saw. I can tell you that GHA Coaches, referred to in the article, have gone down in my estimation even though I've snapped their buses in Chester without any adverse reaction. Why would I want to give any money, by way of bus fares, to a company that condones bad behaviour by their drivers? What other aspects of sloppy behaviour does the company condone?

As with so many threads on here it just gets hijacked by those who want to stick the boot into whatever newspaper(s) they dislike.

If this is a problem then it is surely only right that a newspaper has bought it to the attention of the general public?

The article just mentions that one of them doesn't work, so what?

[Deleted]

The only problem I can remember was at Hammersmith in about 1997/98 I was photographing a Metroline MCW Metrobus on route 220? which was at a Bus stand at the time with the driver sitting in his cab, I took my photo and he started tooting the horn and flashing his lights and he called me over, he said ''you shouldn't be taking my photograph you should have asked me to get out first! I said ''sorry but what about if you were driving through Trafalgar Square in a Routemaster and a load of tourists started taking pictures would you stop and get out the cab then? He said ''that's not the point'' so I said ''have you got something to hide?'' he then closed the cab window and went back to his paper.

Mind you I have not took so many pictures in recent years so perhaps things are going that way?

[daveb0789]

Bus drivers seem to be embarrassed doing their job. You won't catch train drivers giving the finger