Mutiny on the Greyhound

Avi Selk

At some point on the 20-plushour bus trip between Phoenix and Dallas, passengers’ attention turned from the US Southwestern scenery to what was going on in the driver’s seat.

“The bus was leaning a little bit,” Philip Hurd told CBS-11 on Friday, after he and nearly four dozen others had reached the safety of the downtown Dallas Greyhound terminal.

Hurd swayed back and forth, imitating the bus.

“That’s when people really started to get, you know, worried.” Only the driver seemed unconcerned by her driving, passengers told the station.

“We saw her going like this, and just dozing off,” Jasmine McClellan said, sinking her head and then jerking it up like a student half-sleeping in class. “I politely asked her four times to pull over.” As the bus sped and wobbled toward Dallas, McClellan said, politeness eventually had to go out the window.

“It got to the point we had to raise our voice. ‘ Pull over! We have children on this bus!’” she said. “She’d be going over the white line, and everyone would be like, ‘ Wake up!’”

Instead of pulling over, McClellan said, the driver tried to ward off sleep by jabbing herself in the face with a pair of tweezers.

Finally, what CBS called a “mutiny” took place on the Greyhound. It was partially captured on video. A man got out of his seat and stood directly behind the driver, clapping his hands above her head as he screamed: “You should have stopped when you were swerving! You should have stopped when you were swerving!” Still not willing to pull over, passengers told CBS that the driver stood up while the bus was still moving to argue with the man.

Greyhound has opened an internal investigation into the allegations and temporarily grounded the driver, who eventually relinquished control of the bus.

Border Patrol agents finally escorted the bus off the road, where Greyhound found someone else to drive them to Dallas — late but safe.— Washington Post