Thrown off the bus for carrying a pot of paint

A story in the Daily Echo on Saturday, provided a great example of the current state of baffling health and safety regulations and nonsensical decision-making in Britain today.

As the BBC reports:

A bus driver told a passenger he could not board his vehicle because he was carrying a tin of fence paint.

Brian Wakley, from Sandford in Dorset, was 10 miles (16km) from home when told he could not board the 1B Bournemouth to Poole Transdev Yellow Buses service.

The retired office worker said he was told the £3.75 can of non-toxic green paint breached regulations.

The company said paint was banned from being carried on to its vehicles because it could cause a mess.

A mess...God forbid!

This bizarre decision - justified by the company's Head of Operations by saying "over the years we have experienced instances of paint being accidentally dropped by passengers and spilling over the floor" - flies in the face of reason.

Mr Wakley is a 67 year-old retiree, for whom the bus is his only means of travel. If this bus company's rules are open to the sort of interpretation that can leave a pensioner stranded miles from home, the rules need re-writing.

By Dylan Sharpe

Comments

[Sandy]

Does anyone know how difficult it is to get the lid off from a tin of paint? This is bizarre , what are they putting in the tap water???

[Ampers Taylor]

A country always gets the government they deserve, so Labour will get in next time!

[Cazzy Jones]

http://cazzyjones.blogspot.com/2010/02/jobsworth-of-week-on-buses.html

Blakey lives on - but this time making the passengers' lives a misery rather than the crew alone.

[Paul]

I've often seen bus company rules expressly say that paint is not allowed on buses, so I'm not sure there's any question of this being a matter of interpretation.

Anyway, the UK isn't yet the Socialist utopia Gordon has been trying to achieve, as there's still some free market left. Why shouldn't bus companies refuse to carry passagers with paint for the reason they've given here or for no reason at all?

[LeChiffre]

@Paul

Bus companies could at least be a bit more logical and consistent: they let people eat and drink (yes, even alcohol) on buses and leave the leftovers and empties on the seats and the floors so what's the problem with a sealed paint pot?

[Watching Them, Watching Us]

This sort of thing has been going on for a couple of years:

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/chorley/claytonlewoods/2058594.Pensioner_with_tub_of_paint_refused_bus_travel/

"Pensioner with tub of paint refused bus travel

12:17pm Wednesday 20th February 2008

By Gordon McCully

Seventy-six-year-old Breda Fox got the brush off - as she tried to take a sealed two-and-a-half litre tub of paint on the bus.

Baffled Breda was left "upset and embarrassed" when the driver put the brakes on her ten-minute trip home.

The great grandmother was told she was not allowed on with her £2.49 tub of emulsion - because it was potentially dangerous.

She had bought the paint along with a bag of bulbs for planting from B & Q in Chorley, just across the road from where she was about to catch the 125/126 service Stagecoach bus home to her bungalow in Carlton Avenue, Clayton-le-Woods.

Ironically she waited ten minutes for the next bus, concealed the tub in a carrier bag with her bulbs and got on without any problems.

[...]"

[Sue]

Rules, signs,
Bans, fines.
That's the story,
Of government glory.
Mustn' go,
Against the flow.
Ne'er be bold,
Do as you're told.

[Sandy]

I remember years ago when I was a small child trying to get on the bus with my father. In his posession was a tyre for his car(the reason we needed to take the bus) we were refused and had to walk miles to get home. The reason at the time? There was not one ,the driver just did not want the tyre on the bus.

[FaustiesBlog]

So much for joined up policies.

First, the town-planning clowns site supermarkets out of town, such that walking there is not an option - especially since the return journey would be with heavy bags of shopping.

Then they try to stop us from using cars to do shopping.

Now you can't take your shopping on a bus?

And for this disjoint between policy and implementation (whether public or private) we pay council jobsworths a fortune.

Pruning season is nigh.

[Daniel Senior]

I was asked in Nottingham to get off the bus, as i tried to board with a tin of paint, I was told that I could get on with it, if it was in a carrier bag, but without a carrier it posed a risk of been spilt, and possibly igniting

[coach purses]

Completely agree with your comments on this - thanks for taking the time to post.