Friday 21 August 2015

Bonn diaries 2


This incident occurred few months back when I was in Bonn. I had written it down but not posted it.

Today had a very nice experience here in Bonn. I was travelling with a bus back home from my course. In a very narrow lane the bus cut in too close to a cycle rider. As the bus driver drove on, the cycle rider chased him at full speed shouting something at him. I heard him say, "Haben Sie Führerschein?" Which translates to "kya aapke paas license hai?" In many such cases I have seen people resort to "tu-tadak". The bus driver stopped the bus and apologised profusely to the cycle rider. He explained that he had not seen the rider and he is extremely sorry for that. Wow! what a civility! Wish we had more such people in the world. As opposed to this, once, I had a bus driver shout at me in Bonn itself. We were travelling with a family pass which allows two adults, 3 children and a bike on the bus if it is not too crowded. it was night time and the bike could have been allowed. The driver did not know the rules nor did he know English. He did not allow us the bike and my husband had to ride the bike home. It was very upsetting. But in any case we wrote a complaining mail to the SWB for which we received a reply promptly. They apologised profusely and asked us to continue using the services. They stood by us and promised to have a word with the said driver and warn him too. This professional handling of a not so pleasant experience makes me wonder why can not everyone be so. Is it actually so difficult to apologise?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Abha,
I was searching online on how to complaint against bus drivers in SWB Bonn and came across your post. Today me and my friends had a very bad experience.
Me and two of my other friends were waiting for a bus in Bonn. When the bus arrived the driver did not open the back door of the bus to let my friend in, even though me and my other friend boarded the bus from the front door.
According to the rules the back gate does not open after 21:00 and it was only around 17:00. Do not know why the bus driver did that. My friend came running to the front door but by then the driver closed the front door as well and I asked him to stop the bus but he did not let him in. We wanted to complaint against the bus driver. Could you tell me how you complaint and if the SWB authority actually takes some serious action?