Greyhound states that it's companies mission is to provide transportation across North America with safety, dignity and convenience. However, Greyhound failed to uphold its mission when it allowed one of its buses to breakdown in the middle of the road and stay there for 6 hours before another bus came by (by acident) to help the customers on the bus. This is how it began.
At 11:50pm on July 26, Bus 1233 pulled off from Atlanta, Ga to make its destination to Orlando, Florida. According to the itinerary, this bus would pull in at 7:50am, July 27th. At first, the bus ride was fine, there was no problems. That was until I realized that the bus avoided making its first pit stop. The bus had begun to jerk a lot and the lights would flicker. I assumed that the bus needed gas but wasn't sure what the problem was. The bus driver then continue driving until we reached the second pit stop in Tifton, GA where we pulled in a well lighted gas station that had a Subway connected to it. This was a chance that everyone could stop for a break to stretch their legs, grab something to eat, or take a smoke break. I did none of the above because it was already a couple minutes after 3am. I figured that within four hours, I would be in Florida and I could eat later. While I stayed on the bus, again, the bus began to jerk and the lights flickered. The bus driver had then arrived back on the bus however, before he returned on the bus, he made a call to Greyhound. He informed Greyhound that the bus would probably breakdown because the bus had been jerking and the lights had been blinking. The bus driver was instructed to continue driving and "not alarm the patrons."
Within an hour after that phone call, Bus 1233 broke down on the side of the road, somewhere between Jasper, FL and Lake City, FL. We were stuck. Others, like myself, didn't get anything to eat because we assumed that we would arrive to our locations shortly and it wasn't necessary. However, after the bus driver informed us that Greyhound wouldn't deploy a bus until 7 that morning, we all got a little frustrated.
However, we weren't as frustrated as we were when we found out that Greyhound had still not deployed another bus to get us and it would be probably 9am before we got another bus. Some continue to wait it out while others opted to hitch-hike or call family members to pick them up. We then later found out that the bus that was suppose to come get us broke down.
It wasn't until another Greyhound bus passed by that some of the patrons on our bus flagged down in order to get a ride to the nearest Greyhound station.By this time, it was 10:34am. The bus took us to Lake City station where we were lied to and told that another bus would be there to pick us up in 10-15minutes.
These 10-15 minutes turned into an hour later. Then after we got on the bus, we had to drive back to the location where we broke down to pick up a lady that 3 buses had already passed by! Needless to say, I did not arrive in Orlando until 5:12, making me miss my 5pm cruise. Of course, when I told Greyhound this, they stated they were not responsible for reimbursing me.
I want Greyhound fined for endangering the 55 lives of the passengers in Bus1233. Because Greyhound had the option to keep the passengers at the pit stop instead of continue the trip, then the passengers would not have to worry about certain health issues like heatstrokes, claustrophobia, hypoglycema (some of which actual passengers suffered from).
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