27 July 2012

Take a seat

It does seem that most of this week has been taken up with events elsewhere in Devon, and today is no exception with this bizarre tale that has to be seen to be believed:

Police in Devon are asking for help in finding a bus passenger who caused £200 worth of damage by eating his seat – or at least a chunk of it.

CCTV-footage-of-the-man-p-008The young man was travelling on the bus in Paignton, on the English riviera, when he was apparently seized by an attack of hunger or boredom and began biting the leather seat.

A police spokesman summed the crime up: "While travelling between Paignton and Torquay on a number 12 bus, a male passenger started chewing the leather seat he was sat on and continued to pick at the hole with his hand to make further damage. Around £200 of damage was caused."

The bus operator Stagecoach's conditions of carriage asks passengers to "refrain from eating and drinking items which make the environment unpleasant for other customers or otherwise cause offence". It does not address the question of eating bits of the bus.

A spokeswoman for the company said the passenger had only been on the bus for 20 minutes. She said he had been chatting to people on the bus but then decided to munch on the seat. She did not know if he had swallowed the leather and emphasised that he had only eaten a small part of the seat – but enough to make it unpractical to repair it. "It's not the case that he ate the whole seat," she added.

The Guardian(!) 26 July 2012

This does seem one of the most unusual acts of bus vandalism I have come across – unless anyone else can beat it?


Bloggers

  • How lovely to meet so many people at Sunday’s Plymouth Hoe rally who knew all about 270 KTA’s exploits as soon as they saw her. 270KTA
  • The big question is:- Will this exodus of bus stops further denude the traditional shopping streets in favour of the newer shiny "malls" and, having so denuded them, will the sleek new trams end up (still?) serving not very much. Public Transport Experience
  • There was a sea change from the early- to mid-1980s. One of the pioneers to realise that livery could do more than protect and, in fact, was a method of projecting a brand, was an unlikely Plymouth City Transport. Omnibuses

No comments:

Post a Comment

Have something interesting to say? Please share it here!

(Moderation is currently switched on so please allow a short while before your comment appears on the site. This is only to cut down on spam - not to cut out people who disagree with me!)