A bus driver abandoned his vehicle in a rage midway through his trip as he could no longer put up with his moaning passengers.
Taking his belongings and hanging up his tie, the driver uttered several obscenities before saying: “See what your grumbling has done? I don’t know why you’re taking it out on drivers. This is (Transport Minister) Austin Gatt’s fault, not ours”.
He then got off the bus, which had left Ċirkewwa, at the Buġibba bus terminus.
His passengers had been grumbling that their bus, which was meant to leave at 5.30 a.m., had not arrived, according to Josette Vella, who boarded at 6.15 a.m. from Mellieħa to get into Valletta.
“It was early in the morning and the 5.30 a.m. bus had not passed by all week, according to other passengers,” Ms Vella said.
As the trip progressed, the grumbling increased until the driver flipped and left the bus at the nearest terminus. It took passengers another 15 minutes to board another bus, delaying the trip even further, Ms Vella said.
An Arriva spokesman said it was not the driver’s fault. The bus had left late as there had been a delay beyond his control.
“He was getting verbal abuse from passengers en route to Buġibba which was getting worse and worse. Then, one of the passengers spat on him and that pushed him over the edge and he didn’t want to drive the bus ever again,” the spokesman said.
The driver ‘disappeared’ and the supervisor got hold of him over the phone and tried to calm him down, finally convincing him to return to the office.
Asked whether any disciplinary action was taken against the driver, the spokesman said no decision had yet been taken.
“He shouldn’t have left the bus, but equally our drivers should not be subject to any verbal abuse or spat at. It’s completely unnecessary,” the spokesman said. “We’d quite like to find the person who spat at the driver.
“That’s not the kind of passenger we want on our bus,” the spokesman said, adding the company would check its CCTV footage to see if any footage was captured, and any assaults would be reported to the police.