AIBU to complain after a bus driver shouted at me and my children?

I've heard there have been major problems with kids on buses with this scheme, from so many people. That doesn't mean he should have a go at you if you've done nothing. I'm not quite sure why he said your kids got on without saying anything as presumably they were with you. I always got mine to shout morning or afternoon when they got the free under 5s tickets, but if your aren't used to the bus they might not have known about saying anything. Or maybe they did and this guy just didn't hear them.

Are people real in this thread?! Excusing this drivers shitty behaviour and name calling this family, that’s wild to me! This is absolutely not acceptable and not necessary. Yes absolutely complain, bad day or not he was rude as fuck despite you profusely apologising. Don’t tolerate shit like this OP. Put them straight in their place and tell them you’ll be complaining in future. He’s in a profession that deals with the public, not to stand and lecture people on their parenting skills because he was having a bad day.

My god, some of these responses are bonkers. He was a rude twat, taking out a bad day/week on someone smaller and weaker.

I'm a Londoner who uses buses frequently and the other week I was rushing to get on a bus that was just pulling up to the stop just before I got to it so I ran and I jumped on, without thinking about it, whilst midway through messaging the person I was on my way to meet. Totally in a world of my own and totally absent mindedly I didn't tap on. The bus driver called out, but I didn't register he was talking to me (I really was in another world). I sat down and he had to call to me again to get me to go back and tap on. But at no point was he aggressive or unpleasant, in fact he laughed along with me at my embarrassment.

(I've also never taught my kids to say hi to the bus driver as we got on. We acknowledge and say thanks when getting off, if there's not a wall of people in the way, but not on. Can't explain why we do it that way round, but to me that's the norm in London).

Haven't read the whole post, so apologies if I'm just repeating everything, but we get buses all the time and our local company always does kids go free during the holidays. I never know whether to mention the kids or not (teens now), as the drivers always say "kids go free" and then I feel like I have to be pleasantly surprised by this fact (definitely a me problem 😂) and not all of the drivers bother with the tickets for the kids.
I had a similar experience the other day though with a miserable bus driver: I had a return so scanned my ticket and just followed the kids along and the driver made me stop and get tickets for them.
Also in terms of kids talking to the drivers - we often get the bus that picks up the local secondary kids going to the next town over, very few of them do anything more than scan their tickets, even though that bus is usually driven by the friendliest driver ever. He never moans at them or calls them rude, it's just what most teenagers do these days!

Since all busses are absolutely CCTV covered up to the max it will be east to see if it was the driver who probably is sick of nasty kids all day or your perfect little darlings that were causing the issues

If it is the driver I'd expect appropriate action reprimand and training to be provided and an apology to be issued...

If it was your lovely innocent babies who were infact in the wrong I would hope you also followed a similar plan

This.

How did you get that from what the OP said? Why should she not be in a pleasant little bubble of calm on a day out? Are you always so rude to people and defend people who are as rude as you?

He was a complete arsehole over a simple misunderstanding. It doesn't matter if he was 'hot' or if your 'kids walked behind you'. Jeez. Sorry this happened to you over an innocent mistake, OP. Definitely complain.

They're free regardless of whether an adult is with them.

I'd complain. No excuse to talk to people like this.

I don’t understand how you were unaware that the driver was shouting at your DC if they were directly behind you.

2 kids got on. Wasn't clear whether they were traveling free with the adult that had got on before them and were therefore free with that adult or travelling alone therefore needed tickets. Neither you or them were polite enough to let the driver know that you were traveling together so the driver not only had to contend with them being rude, but also that they had potentially dodged paying. Try being polite and people might be polite back.

An also going to add that if your kids had been accompanied by their father, I very much doubt that the bus driver would have been so aggressive.

This is what urks me the most, the OP over apologised and posters are still sticking up for him, bleeting on about the amount of rude passengers they have to contend with 😩 it's breaking my brain.

Yes. Complain. Behaviour like this puts people off using buses.

And we need people to use buses. We need people to get out of their cars. They are not going to do it if every time that they venture out, they get a mouthful from an irate driver.

Complain.

“Act more responsibly” because she walked slightly ahead of her teenage kids?!

Puhlease. Give it a rest. 🙄

Woah there! You know absolutely nothing of what she was thinking about, when, why or how they got on the bus, in what order they boarded and what circumstances caused her to not hear the driver!

Jeez sometimes the trolling for trolling’s sake is strong on Mumsnet! 🙄

He sounds like a massive A-hole and I don't care how bad his day was, he should not have shouted at you like that and make you feel that way, especially after you apologised profusely, what the hell?? Yes definitely complain! I would.

Some bus drivers and nice and some aren’t. My grandad was a bus driver. My dad didn’t drive and he got the bus everywhere and got to know quite a lot of the bus drivers on his regular buses and would chat to them.

Recently my autistic daughter for the bus to a friend’s house. She pressed the bell at the wrong stop so when the bus stop she apologised and she got a mouthful of abuse from him. I know this as she literally replays things back word for word when telling you anything about her day. Later that day she was meant to come home and I got a message dom friend saying she was having a panic attack over getting back on a bus and could I pick her up.

We had a similar situation last year on our local metro transport when she forgot her card that has preloaded cheaper fairs for 16-18 year olds so she bought a ticket. She wrongly bought a child ticket. She didn’t realise at 16 she needed an adult ticket as on the buses she’s a child up to 25. Anyway she put her ticket in the barrier and it wouldn’t work. No idea why. So she asked politely for help. The barrier person took her ticket and asked her age. She told him 16 and she got told she was travelling on the wrong ticket and was then told to follow him to the office where he took a full description of her physical appearance, name address and phone number etc. she was beside herself and crying and he just shouted at her and gave her a warning ticket that next time she would get a fine. The way she was spoken to really upset her and she refused to get on the metro for months, even with me and even with her pre loaded card. Interestingly she didn’t leave the station to go to her destination but went back down to get the next train back home - despite her ticket being invalid. Panic had set in. She had the invalid ticket in her hand when she left the exit barriers at the other end still crying and visibly upset and the lady on the barrier just waved her through.

I understand people dodge fares a lot but she is a very polite and timid autistic teen who was travelling alone and the member of staff who took her details could have just told her it was invalid and let her off with a verbal warning and told her to get a valid ticket for her return but he made the biggest fuss. If she had have been with a group dodging fares then I could have understood his written warning.

What outcome are you looking for if you complain?

As other posters have said, this isn't the case at all in London. Kids just get on buses, no tickets or scanning of anything (my 13yo now uses his Zip card but he forgot it last week and just hopped on with us)

I know bus drivers can get a but rude with the school kids, I've known them not to let kids without Zip cards on, despite them clearly being in school uniform but I think school kids in general can be pretty badly behaved on buses.... anyway I digress.

FWIW my DC gets the Tybe to school which isn't free but still requires a Zip card.

I'd have told him to shove it up his arse instead of grovelling and scraping- twice! 'Sorry, honest mistake' is ample in this situation.

He shouldn't have spoken to you like that,here most drivers are just letting children on,yes in some cases the buses are being used as a mobile youth club,with some bored teens just hopping from one bus to the next,but that isn't your fault if you are in a public facing role you need to be respectful and tolerant he failed completely on both.

Yes, funny that. They know exactly who to take their aggression out on with no comeback.

🤣🤣🤣

“Don't look her in the eyes, it’ll make her angry” 😂