On my way home last night, I found myself on a 2 train at Nevins St. with an empty space next to me. The space was large enough for another person to sit down comfortably, and I was up against the pole trying to make sure any person room to sit down. At Nevins, a woman boarded the train, sat down nearly on top of me without saying excuse and then proceeded to blast music through her headphones at volumes loud enough for me sitting next to her to hear clearly. It was a lesson in inconsiderate behavior.
Earlier this week, something scary happened to a bus driver in the Bronx. It was on an entirely different level than my tale but shows the less-than-considerate behavior people on the buses and subways display. Here’s the story, per the Daily News:
Carrying a Chihuahua, [17-year-old Steangeli] Medina boarded the Bx9 bus on Fordham Road at Cambreleng Ave. in Belmont just before 6 p.m., police said. She became enraged when [bus driver Marlene] Bien-Aime said the pet had to be in a crate to travel. “She said, ‘I’m gonna hit you,'” Bien-Aime said.
The driver responded, “It’s not me, it’s MTA.” Seconds later, the first punch was thrown, said Bien-Aime, who spent Wednesday night at St. Barnabas Hospital. “I was simply doing my job yesterday,” Bien-Aime said.
Medina, a student at Richard R. Green High School in Manhattan, was released on her own recognizance last night after her arraignment on charges of assault, menacing and harassment. The dog was returned to her family.
Yesterday, Bien-Aime and union officials spoke out against the attack. While the MTA knows about the problem of bus driver assaults, they have been slow to better protect drivers. A five-bus pilot that includes a protective shield hasn’t yet moved beyond the initial stages, but the authority expects to equip 100 out of over 6000 soon. It’s not enough, and as the MTA gears up to confront and negotiate with its union, it must make personnel safety a key issue.
Now, as much as I don’t want to draw too many generalizations from a few bad isolated incidents — at least 27 drivers have been attacked this year — it’s hard not to. Medina felt entitled to bring her dog on board a crowded bus. Never mind the rules; never mind the passengers; never mind the drivers. She wanted the rules to apply to others and not her. When she couldn’t get her way, she attacked.
That, of course, is why people in the subway just roll their eyes at those who blast music through headphones, litter and drop food on the floors of subway cars. We don’t want to end up in Bien-Aime’s position with bruises and black eyes and a trip to the emergency room. Manners, it seems, are often missing from the subway system, and the best we can hope is that we’re not on the wrong end of a person with a few screws loose who are at the end of a long day.
Perhaps this is all just a part of the feelings of entitlement that fill our system. Many straphangers never want to wait for trains, always want a seat and will complain no matter how smooth their rides are. They want better and better, and when they don’t get their way, they attack. Bus drivers should be safer and better protected; people should be calmer. But we don’t live in an Eden.
8 comments
This reminds me of a great Pete Donohue column in the Daily News in May about confronting those short on manners or using poor judgment while riding the subway. While Pete confronted the fellow passenger successfully, not everyone has the same luck or fate. More policing would help of course, but that is but a pie-in-the-sky, utopian wish. What we can do is be more concious of our actions and hope that the behavior of the many well-mannered, considerate riders rubs off on others. Lead by example and others will follow.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_.....ilty_.html
A Sisyphean project Ben. More often than not, I find that I’m one of the few who is bothered by inconsiderate riders as you described above. When I look around the train, most other riders are so into their own world of iPods/iPhones and the like that they really don’t care. On the uptown #5 this morning, a young lady had a yippy little dog on her lap that wouldn’t stop sniping at the rider next to her. The young lady sitting next to her, trying to read a book, got up in frustration after the dog wouldn’t stop fidgeting and sniping. Did the girl who owned the dog do or say anything (like, “I’m sorry”). Not at all.
I gave up a long time ago.
“I’m one of the few who is bothered by inconsiderate riders as you described above”
yes, the rudeness is remarkable, but the acquiescence is simply amazing. apparently sensibilities have been so dulled (by an environment of constant noise, imo) that few even imagine that in a shared space each should think of the sensibilities of others. i’ve taken to noise reduction techniques (silicone earplugs, industrial headsets) because it felt shameful when i moved for someone else’s rudeness.
I wish we could have cops patrolling and dishing out tickets to people who litter and do other inconsiderate things on the subway. The problem with so many people is that they face little to no recourse for their actions.
That, and there’s a whole generation that’s grown up with absolutely no training by their parents. Look at pics of kids in the 1960s and ’70s and you’ll see 10-year-olds with jackets and ties on going to school. Since the mid-’70s, it’s been every man and woman for themselves, no ties, no jackets, no class, nothing but me, my outward flash of sneakers, bling and baggy paints, and the use of the words “motherfucker” and “bitches” to describe anything from your teacher to your girlfriend.
The MTA was able to get the grafitti and (most) of the grime off the trains, but you can’t legislate and clean up manners. They have to come from those who raised you, and one look at the parents is enough to make anyone cringe. When you see a 2-year-old boy getting the shit slapped out of him by his mother because he wasn’t walking fast enough, you can only wonder why he won’t grow up reading Ms. Manners.
Here’s the lesson I’ve learned after ten years work in retail: New Yorkers, and possibly Americans in general, will not accept being told “No.” Look at politics. Case closed.
[…] last week, I highlighted the tale of a Bronx woman who assaulted a bus driver when her dog was refused entry to the Bx9. […]
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