OPINION: Who should be apologising?

I read an article yesterday on the Birmingham Mail website with some disgust.

Basically, a small group of unruly kids decided it would be ‘funny’ to pour drinks out of the window, then throw bricks at a 72 bus in Garretts Green, which saw a young child being injured and the bus taken out of service.

The teens are said to begun the disorder by pouring drinks over passers-by from windows after getting on the No. 72 on Garretts Green Lane, Sheldon .
They later swore at the driver when an alarm was activated – and then smashed the bus windows with rocks after getting off.
Witnesses claim a young boy was hit by a stone, although he was not injured.
The incident took place near the McDonald’s on Garretts Green Lane at around 4pm on Wednesday (July 17).

A witness said the chaos started soon after the group got on outside a school. They started pouring drinks onto people from the upstairs windows and the alarm was activated.

They then came downstairs and continued to abuse the driver and block the doors.
The gang left but then threw rocks at the bus, allegedly striking the boy who was with his mother. He was said to be uninjured but was left in tears. 
A witness said the rocks were thrown when the gang got off the bus.

“Next thing you know they all started throwing rocks, stones at the bus and smashed the windows.
“The passengers were led off in the end as the bus was in a bad condition to drive. “

Birmingham Mail – ” Terror on the No. 72. Gang abuse bus driver and throw rocks at windows -‘hitting young boy'” – July 18th 2019

I’m sure you’ll all agree that this is a particularly unsavoury incident that took place. School age kids who think its a ‘great laugh’ to pour drinks out of bus windows onto passers-by, then when challenged on this, think its a ‘great hoot’ to throw bricks at the bus, injuring a passenger on board, which then causes the bus to have to go out-of-service in order to be repaired.

Dirty, feral animals, that’s what these kids are. I hope their parents are really proud of them.

As if that didn’t disgust me enough, I found it absolutely abhorrent that the bus operator, NX West Midlands, felt they needed to apologise for this incident.

The company apologised to the passengers and said the bus was taken away to be repaired.

In my opinion, it should NOT be NX Bus apologising to its passengers for this incident, but instead it should be the parents of these delinquent kids who should be doing so.

What kind of parent allows their children to grow up and think this kind of disrespectful and criminal behaviour is somehow ‘acceptable’?

The children involved have been ‘named and shamed’ elsewhere on Facebook, how does that make their school look to know their pupils have been involved in this mindless vandalism?

If I was their parent, or the head master of their school, I would be embarrassed.

I fear for the future of our society, when blameless people continue to apologise for the behaviour of unruly and feral persons, and we seem to accept this somehow as being ‘normal’. Well, I don’t.



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About WMBU

I'm Stu, and I created West Midlands Bus Users in 2013 to share news, info and opinion with fellow bus users in the West Midlands.
I've been travelling around on buses since my teens, and use them every day as I don't drive.

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