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Comment by privateSFacct | Hacker News Reader

This - enforce carpool lanes and give buses priority access. Immediate positive.

Secondly and more importantly for me (and I know unpopular) - kick off the drunk / other rule-breakers and anyone who threatens people even if its just a result of mental illness. No one wants to start their day next to someone yelling - "I'll f* you up... etc" on a crowded bus. At least where I am the bus drivers don't do anything from small - blasting music -> to larger - nonstop threats of violence.

I have only small anecdotes but other places seem to empower the drivers etc more. And the jitney cabs in the Caribbean would flat out leave people on the side of the road if they were sloppy drunk.

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Some of this is down to the driver being the only staff member on the bus. They should be fully focused on driving as a bus hitting anything is bad news. Stopping to kick people off just delays everyone on the bus getting where they need to go.

If there was a conductor on the bus then they could deal with inappropriate behaviour, but no bus company wants to pay two members of staff when they can get away with one.

Why not rotate conductors throughout different busses? A conductor gets on at one stop, checks everyone's tickets (so they may end up covering a lot of their cost initially in fines), then get off a few stops later and catch a bus going the other way.

Every major city I've ridden mass transit in does this. They're not called conductors though, they're called transit cops. They're also still woefully ineffective.

Would be interesting to see if we can create self driving buses and have the driver change roles to become payment management and enforcing a safe area in the bus.

You need at least 2 people to enforce the law and at the same time avoid excessive zeal/abuse.

In my city the ticket checkers are always in groups of 3.

If no one is driving, it makes citizens do more of the work.. in a crowded bus, a group of normal people could throw the asshole off. Eventually, the assholes won't ride the bus.

In the current climate, an untrained unlicensed bouncer is just begging to get sued. They work under strict rules that most people don't know.

How many commuters are even armed? A shocking number of offices have begun to forbid it.

In most countries you don't need to be armed to kick people off a bus. Do you suggest people throw out drunks at gunpoint? That seems really dangerous.

If one person is armed and the other isn't, the fight's over before it begins unless the other person is disabled by drugs or mental illness. If neither is armed, a surprising number of people will think they have a chance against the trained fighter, and some even might.

Therefore, arming conductors helps even when nobody walks around with a firearm.

It helps if you want to increase the number of people killed for being stupid on a bus. I don't think the penalty for disturbing public order should be death.

To the helpless, I suggest don't poke the bear.

I would be shocked and refuse to work at a place that allowed employees to bring in guns.

in a crowded bus, a group of normal people could throw the asshole off. Eventually, the assholes won't ride the bus.

This is not a realistic proposal. Have you ever gotten a bus?

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