The behaviour of youths on buses in Dundee is appalling. Since the Scottish Government brought in free travel for under-22s, buses have become mobile gang huts.
Kids too young to go to pubs used to hang about their local chip shop.
Now they get on buses and ride around getting free wi-fi.
It’s worse with the colder, wetter weather. Buses have become warm, dry playgrounds.
Not every route, not every bus, not every kid.
But I know there will be many who have experienced the anti-social behaviours I list below.
Spitting, swearing, vaping, smoking, drinking, drugs, shouting, littering, throwing insults, throwing things, harassing other passengers, playing deafening music with lyrics inappropriate for a mixed audience.
They fight among themselves, or at least engage in convincing mock fights.
Heaven help you if you tell them to sit down and shut up.
Stand at a Dundee bus stop and tell me free travel for under-22s is working
There are no conductors, but then who would want the job of confronting aggressive young thugs?
And I feel desperately sorry, and have great respect for, lone bus drivers who have enough to do keeping their eyes on the road but who have to deal with this behaviour.
Who could blame them if they quit?
They aren’t paid to be mobile social workers, OAP bodyguards, or creche supervisors.
When the schools come out, even getting on a bus is difficult.
Scores of kids crowd on, elbowing anyone else in the queue out of the way.
Try being a young mum with toddler and pushchair, or a disabled person getting on a bus near a school.
This is the result of some feral youths in #Dundee utilising their free travel on an @Buses_McGills @XploreDundee £500,000 bus. A growing problem that we will not accept. @PoliceScotland and @DundeeCouncil are aware.
Video credit to WD pic.twitter.com/dS4zdRKUa6
— Ralph Roberts (@NoConceptOfTime) May 27, 2022
And these schoolkids stay on only a few stops, sometimes just one stop.
It would be much better for them to walk and get some exercise, some air in their lungs.
Free travel for kids – great idea, lousy in practice
Does this sound trivial? Kids shouting, loud music, queue-jumping?
Don’t judge what is and isn’t trivial until you have experienced it from the point of view of a pensioner frightened to get on a bus.
Take notice of what older people think, for once.
Often the old have no choice but to use buses, and have to get on when they can because who knows when – or if – another bus will come.
And don’t be so naïve as to tell me that such incidents should be reported.
If you ask the police how many bus incidents they’ve attended, they’ll reply “not many”.
There is no point calling police, everyone knows that.
The number of young people taking advantage of free bus travel in Dundee has soared – but a senior police officer in Aberdeen claims it has come at a cost. https://t.co/8ZNc6NJ3Ur
— Evening Telegraph (@Evening_Tele) November 11, 2022
They never arrive in time anyway.
But such behaviour is genuinely intimidating. No one should have to put up with it.
Free bus travel for under-22s needs a radical rethink.
It was a good idea in theory but, in practice, it is an experiment which hasn’t worked.
The bad points outweigh the good.
Take a trip on a Dundee bus this evening, then tell me your opinion.
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