ON THE BUSES: An Apartheid of Ageism

Rochdale Bus Station Boss Pleads Data Protection

by BRIAN BAMFORD

THIS AFTERNOON a supervisor at Rochdale Bus Station faced with a chaotic circus of non-compliant crowds of students elbowing older passengers aside as they boarded the 17 bus enroute for Manchester at going-home time between 3.30pm and 4.30pm refused to give his name claiming his right to data protection. Social distancing was being ignored throughout the town centre bus station as the manager who refused to give his name claimed that he was powerless to insist that young passengers wear masks or obey the posters warning citizens that if they didn't they could be 'fined £200'.

The Rochdale supervisor told a man complaining about the prevailing swarms of young students who were intimidating other passengers in order to junp the queues that he would have him physically removed from the bus station if he coninued to protest. He said he was unwilling to bring-in the Greater Manchester Transport Police to make safe travel at the bus station possible. Security staff were present within the station but when asked by an elderly lady to intervene to ensure that the bus queues within the station were properly policed said they couldn't, and immediately moved away making themselves scarce.

When an 80-year-old man exasperated by the supervisor's dismisive attitude asked if he was impotent, muscle-bound when confronted with the chaos in the bus station with people deliberately flouting covid regulations described the supervisor's insistance that he was entitled to data protection as 'bollocks'! At that point the supervisor used the term as an excuse to switch on his camera and threaten to have the elderly man physically removed from his station, and a lady who was accompanying the man took fright that the station-master was going to have her partner removed by force.

Then the lady in earnest described how another old lady with a stick had been pushed aside at the 17 bus stop, the bus station supervisor then offered an absurd suggestion saying 'you should chose a different time of day to catch the bus!'.

It seems that Rochdale Bus Station has now surrendered control to the spirit of an ageist aparthied and mob rule under the current management who are shy about giving their names and are happy to bully old folk who have timerity to complain about the unbearable conditions of public transport in Rochdale town centre.

'Catch an earlier bus' seems to be becoming the 'general war cry' of officialdom in answer to the current covid crisis. This was the message earlier this year given to a passenger in South Manchester to which she responded as reported in the Manchester Evening News below:

'She branded their advice to catch earlier or later services as 'ludicrous and preposterous', adding: "I have to work nine to five. I cannot be getting a bus at 7am and standing in the cold outside my office waiting for my boss to arrive. I cannot leave early to get a bus at 4pm or wait in town for later services so they are quiet, especially as all cafes are shut.'

And she continued:

"I am sick of being made to travel under these conditions.

"They should be paying for the number of buses actually needed at rush hour to ensure conditions are safe for passengers who no option other than to go to work on these buses or lose their jobs."

She added: "Last night it was freezing, and there was one window open for most of the journey, but there is very little that can be done to stop passengers closing them. There was also a man sitting on the back seat with his mask on his chin."

She also claims drivers say nothing to passengers who flout mask rules, adding: "Why should those passengers complying, especially many many NHS staff using these services, be put at risk by these selfish individuals?

"This does not need encouragement, it needs enforcement, and anything less is absolutely pointless."

It seems that the authorities have abandoned all attempts at enforcement and rule is now in the hands of the mob.

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