Passenger backlash

Greyhound could have avoided a possible class action lawsuit if they’d spoken to the more than 100 passengers stranded for 14 hours in White River Monday and offered a formal apology.
 
“We were OK with refunds, possibly credits, but now we’re past that point because we feel they’ve ignored us,” said Elaine Legarde. “We’re angry now, so we’ve had enough.”

The Thunder Bay woman was travelling from Oshawa, where she was visiting her son, to Thunder Bay when the bus stopped for a routine driver-switch in White River.

The two buses had stopped at 3 a.m. and were stuck in the north shore community because of highway closures on both sides of the town one of the drivers told Legarde. The closures also delayed the arrival of the replacement drivers.

Legarde said the passengers were initially told their driver would arrive at 2 p.m. Then it was 2:30 p.m., then 3 p.m. and then 4 p.m. An OPP officer told Legarde the highways had reopened at 6 a.m. that day. The buses finally left White River at 5 p.m.

The normally 22-hour trip from Oshawa to Thunder Bay took a total of 32 hours, Legarde said.

Passengers passed the time on the bus or by waiting in a nearby doughnut shop.

She phoned three different Greyhound offices around 2 p.m.; all of them were closed. The also tried the bus service’s toll free number and received no answer.

“The worst part was not being spoken to, being ignored, the feeling of abandonment,” she said, adding that while one of the drivers was in contact with a Greyhound official, no inquiries were made about the passengers comfort or safety.

“They never said anything about coffee, blankets, warmth, medication, if there were special needs, if there were seniors, children, pregnant women, diabetics, heat patients, nothing,” said Legarde, a registered nurse.

The first concern for Legarde was Greyhound’s lack of safety protocol.

“I feel they need to put something in place so this doesn’t ever happen again,” she said. “In light of past horrendous tragedies that have happened on Greyhound (recently), nothing has been done. There is no behavioural change on the part of management or at the corporate level.

Greyhound issued a statement laying the blame for the delay on “unforeseen weather conditions and resulting road closures.

“We sincerely apologize for the lack of communication provided to our passengers, as well as the inconvenience and concern this caused,” it said.

The company says they are conducting a full investigation and modify their procedures to ensure something like this does not happen again.

Greyhound spokesman Tim Stokes told the Canadian Press the company “will be working with each customer individually” over compensation.

But it may be too late as some passengers, including Legarde, have already retained a lawyer who she says has experience with class action suits involving Greyhound.