Ranty Time!
Aug. 1st, 2008 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teddogI normally don't pull out the soapbox, but things have been grating on my nerves.
1. Stop accusing the other passengers of cowering in fear. Please, stop it. What happened is an extremely bizarre series of events. It's impossible to judge anyone's reaction.
Witnesses have said that the main focus was to get people off the bus in order to get them away from the attacker, as there were families with small children. After everyone was secure, three people went back to attempt a rescue, including a former member of the Canadian Forces. I won't dwell on what they found, as the media is already gone into that.
Other witnesses have claimed that the victim was dead by the time people got off of the bus. And still, people went back. When they discovered that rescue was impossible, these people trapped the attacker inside, risking their own lives to protect everyone else.
And in a move that especially ticks me off, don't say "They all ran away because that's what Canadians do!"
2. Okay, I know that the Canadian media is enjoying how sensational this story is, but could we please have some respect for the victim?!
I have no problem with the eyewitness accounts. They are detailed, but people are trying to explain what they saw. What they saw wasn't pretty.
This said, the reporting on some outlets is reading like a horror novel. I think the worst offender is CTV, although I'm not sure if the particularly gory article is still up. It was in really bad taste. Further, in the late news, CTV referenced rumours of cannibalism. Come on, guys. If something like that did happen, could we wait for the cops to mention it?
3. On the topic of the safety of Greyhounds and other long distance buses.
I've only been on Greyhounds a handful of times, but I've been on GO Transit many, many times. In Canada, the security on them is rather lax and nobody thinks nothing of it.
Bag searches are probably coming soon, along with metal detectors. If it's just going to effect Greyhound, I don't know, however I imagine that setting up a system like that for the GO will be more of a headache. Both systems are fairly open in their boarding areas and you'll have to call into question if random stops are going to effected by this. Buses are not a closed system like airplanes and passengers are free to get off at stops, if they're smart enough to get back in time. This is why I like bus travel, actually - you are responsible for your own actions.
Thus, I'm unsure about the fallout from this. What happened was a freak event and we don't even know what triggered it. Given the man's mental state, we might never know the complete story. Even so, people are going to worry about copycat attacks and we'll see a blunt force security reaction to a problem that may not have any answers.
And that, my friends, is the truly frightening element at work. How far are we willing to push security measures, when there's going to be sick minded people who are willing find workarounds to carry out a task? Every human as the right to feel secure while travelling, but we don't even known what we're fighting.
On an annoying aside, some people who complain about there being a hunting knife on the bus also claim that if someone had a gun, then this could have been prevented. Hindsight aside, all weapons are technically banned from the buses, so this is an attempt of trying to make a right from two wrongs. Dwelling on it is pointless.
And those are my thoughts. My opinion means nothing in all of this, but I just felt the need to get this off of my chest.
1. Stop accusing the other passengers of cowering in fear. Please, stop it. What happened is an extremely bizarre series of events. It's impossible to judge anyone's reaction.
Witnesses have said that the main focus was to get people off the bus in order to get them away from the attacker, as there were families with small children. After everyone was secure, three people went back to attempt a rescue, including a former member of the Canadian Forces. I won't dwell on what they found, as the media is already gone into that.
Other witnesses have claimed that the victim was dead by the time people got off of the bus. And still, people went back. When they discovered that rescue was impossible, these people trapped the attacker inside, risking their own lives to protect everyone else.
And in a move that especially ticks me off, don't say "They all ran away because that's what Canadians do!"
2. Okay, I know that the Canadian media is enjoying how sensational this story is, but could we please have some respect for the victim?!
I have no problem with the eyewitness accounts. They are detailed, but people are trying to explain what they saw. What they saw wasn't pretty.
This said, the reporting on some outlets is reading like a horror novel. I think the worst offender is CTV, although I'm not sure if the particularly gory article is still up. It was in really bad taste. Further, in the late news, CTV referenced rumours of cannibalism. Come on, guys. If something like that did happen, could we wait for the cops to mention it?
3. On the topic of the safety of Greyhounds and other long distance buses.
I've only been on Greyhounds a handful of times, but I've been on GO Transit many, many times. In Canada, the security on them is rather lax and nobody thinks nothing of it.
Bag searches are probably coming soon, along with metal detectors. If it's just going to effect Greyhound, I don't know, however I imagine that setting up a system like that for the GO will be more of a headache. Both systems are fairly open in their boarding areas and you'll have to call into question if random stops are going to effected by this. Buses are not a closed system like airplanes and passengers are free to get off at stops, if they're smart enough to get back in time. This is why I like bus travel, actually - you are responsible for your own actions.
Thus, I'm unsure about the fallout from this. What happened was a freak event and we don't even know what triggered it. Given the man's mental state, we might never know the complete story. Even so, people are going to worry about copycat attacks and we'll see a blunt force security reaction to a problem that may not have any answers.
And that, my friends, is the truly frightening element at work. How far are we willing to push security measures, when there's going to be sick minded people who are willing find workarounds to carry out a task? Every human as the right to feel secure while travelling, but we don't even known what we're fighting.
On an annoying aside, some people who complain about there being a hunting knife on the bus also claim that if someone had a gun, then this could have been prevented. Hindsight aside, all weapons are technically banned from the buses, so this is an attempt of trying to make a right from two wrongs. Dwelling on it is pointless.
And those are my thoughts. My opinion means nothing in all of this, but I just felt the need to get this off of my chest.
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-02 11:12 am (UTC)I don't think this is going to effect transit much. I haven't kept up with the full story but putting metal detectors and bag checks and all that bullshit is something the USA would do. You don't see that happening here, thankfully. :P This is a one in a million or billion sort of thing. We don't need to suddenly go apeshit over it and put in security checks at every depot or whatever. I'm not afraid of this happening to me at all. :P
no subject
Date: 2008-08-02 02:35 pm (UTC)http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_25353.aspx
Check out the terrorist claims too.
Normally I'd brush this off as "It's the Internet!" but given the nature of what happened, I'm more offended because one witnesses has said that he wasn't worried about himself, but the other people. Three people, armed with only crowbars, when back and then defended the other people. We should be comforting them, saying "You did the right thing. You saved countless people." I'm not saying that the death of one person means less than rest of the bus, but the real heroes here are getting overlooked.
I think we're going to see some sort of reaction in transit because you just KNOW someone is going to put pressure on Greyhound. The bus driver union already is publicly. It'll never be an across the board measure, though, because of the nature of the system, but we might see searches larger cities. It reminds me of what's happened to amusement parks - Some parks have had violent attacks and now all major ones have metal detectors. I'm not worried about my safety on a bus, because this attack is a once in a lifetime thing. That's why I said "But we don't even known what we're fighting". We don't know if this man planned the attack (the charges say "No", because he's been charged with 2nd degree murder), why don't know if it's a mental health problem, we don't know what, if something, provoked him. We don't know anything! It's impossible to offer an answer without knowing that caused the problem.
The main reason I've been following this is because I do use buses a fair amout and I'm a mass transit freak.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-04 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-04 06:20 pm (UTC)I went out walking the other day downtown and didn't have any issues. You could really tell that there was something going on, but nobody was giving each other any trouble. All that really happened was some out-of-towners asking me directions and that's pretty normal.