SBS Transit employee seen shouting at senior who jumped queue to be disciplined

Transport operator SBS Transit will take disciplinary action against one of its traffic inspectors seen shouting at an elderly man who had jumped the queue at the Johor Bahru checkpoint bus stop. 

In a video uploaded onto Facebook page The SG Daily on Friday (Nov 21), the elderly man was seen pointing at the traffic inspector before the SBS Transit staff member raised his voice and appeared to shout an expletive while gesticulating at the older man. 

As the traffic inspector yelled "go back", a commuter already on the bus pulled the elderly man onto the vehicle. 

According to the video caption, the incident happened on Nov 20 at around 7.10pm. 

A witness shared that they were sitting in the front row of the bus when the incident occurred.

They recounted that the elderly man had tried to skip the queue, claiming he was sick and needed to get on the bus.

He later began arguing with the bus staff member and had allegedly threatened to hit someone. 

"His voice was loud and aggressive. Two bus employees were not enough to handle him. It was clear he was pretending. He also claimed he was Singaporean so he did not have to queue," said the witness. 

They also claimed that at the Singapore checkpoint, the elderly man had tried to cut the queue again and only "ran off" after the witness took a photo of him and said they would call the police. 

In response to AsiaOne's queries, SBS Transit spokesperson Grace Wu said the traffic inspector was stopping the older man from jumping the queue when boarding bus service 170 in order "to maintain orderly boarding for passenger safety".

"Unfortunately, the passenger refused to comply with the traffic inspector and bus captain's repeated instructions to do so," she said.

That said, Wu added that the traffic inspector "could have managed the situation more calmly and professionally" and explained that the disciplinary action is meant to avoid a similar incident from taking place again.

"We would also like to take this opportunity to encourage passengers to be gracious and considerate, and this includes taking turns to board buses in an orderly manner, as this helps ensure a safer and more pleasant journey for everyone," she said. 

In the comments section of the video, netizens' views were mixed. 

Some sided with the elderly man and said that the SBS Transit staff should not have been so "rough and aggressive" towards him. 

Others said the SBS Transit staff were not to blame as the elderly man was being difficult. 

One netizen also pointed out that "everyone has a limit" and that there must have been a reason for the staff member to react the way he did. 

However, there were some who remained neutral and said that the video did not show the full story. 

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melissateo@asiaone.com