Electrify
Senior Member
A streetcar named desire: Levy
TORONTO - It gives a whole new meaning to hugging the road.
Frequent TTC user Chris VanKeeffe couldn’t believe his eyes when he hopped aboard the 501 streetcar around 5 p.m. two weeks ago and found the driver otherwise occupied.
He wasn’t texting. Or reading. Or smoking a cigarette. Or preparing to stop at an ATM.
The driver was canoodling with a “very attractive” woman VanKeeffe surmised was his girlfriend.
The retired Riverdale resident said the ponytailed young woman - who was dressed in khaki short shorts and a black top with a huge gold bangle on her arm - had her body so close to the driver, she appeared at first to be sitting on his lap.
Her hips were planted so tightly against him, the driver, who seemed to be in his early thirties, had a direct view of her cleavage - and not the entrance to the car - every time he turned to face her, he said.
In fact, she was so busy trying to make kissy-face with him, she blocked his view of the right-hand mirror, VanKeeffe said.
Whenever passengers would get on, she’d move away to allow them to pay their fares. But the minute they were done, she’d reattach herself to the the driver “not missing a beat at all”, he said.
Throughout his five-stop trip from Greenwood Ave. to Pape where he got off, VanKeeffe watched from three rows back as she stroked the back of the driver’s neck and heard them talking and giggling affectionately
“These two were locked all the way to Pape … both of them seemed oblivious to their surroundings,” he said, noting the passengers in the half-full streetcar were all shaking their heads.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”
Nevertheless when he got off the car, he watched them continue that way as Streetcar 4237 headed west into the “disappearing sunset.”
While he didn’t have a cellphone camera or BlackBerry to record the incident, he did call TTC chairman Karen Stintz right away and caught her in her office.
This is where the story of the Streetcar Named Desire gets even better.
The next day, VanKeeffe was contacted by TTC officials, who told him any video footage of the incident from the streetcar could not be used (!) to implicate the driver due to privacy issues.
He was told, apparently, that under the union contract these privacy rights have been in place for 20 years.
“I got the impression they were afraid to challenge it,” he said.
VanKeeffe said he was encouraged to either go down to his local police station and lay a charge of careless driving against the operator - or to testify at an arbitration hearing against the driver and be cross-examined by a union lawyer.
“I was absolutely shocked (with their response),” he said, calling the privacy provision “archaic.”
New CEO Andy Byford said they are aware of the issue and are “actively” pursuing an investigation. He provided no further details.
TTC chairman Karen Stintz confirmed that she’d asked for an investigation into the incident after VanKeeffe contacted her office.
She said they have negotiated a policy with the unions that any video taken on a TTC vehicle is not to be used to investigate their own employees — just incidences of assault against drivers or service disruptions.
Stintz suggested VanKeeffe file a Freedom of Information (FOI) request with the TTC to try to get access to the video.
Asked whether she sees anything wrong with that, she said that’s a discussion they need to have with the unions.
Efforts to reach ATU local 113 boss Bob Kinnear through his ‘gatekeeper’ Bill Reno were not successful Wednesday.
Still it all makes sense now.
It’s little wonder Kinnear and Co. have been so upset with the actions of their drivers being captured on cellphone cameras and BlackBerrys in the past two years.
Seeing as the TTC management won’t challenge this archaic ruling, at least there are vigilant commuters who will do so, indirectly.
As for the driver and his brazen gal pal, here’s my advice to them: Next time, get a room.
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/08/29/a-streetcar-named-desire-levy
I'm generally pro-union, but this policy is utter garbage and plays right into the hands of those who are anti-union. It is bad enough that unions have the perception of defending bad employees, but preventing the employer from reviewing security footage to determine if the allegations against an employee are true or not is not going to help their cause in the public eye. The drivers know that they are being recorded, so unless the union paid for these cameras, there is absolutely no logical reason why the TTC cannot look at that footage.
Of course, this assumes that SAL's reporting is accurate. I can understand the TTC not reviewing security footage to monitor an employee unless a complaint was made or they have reason to believe that he is not doing his job properly (doing so otherwise would be a tremendous waste of resources), but with a complaint made being barred from reviewing evidence which could convict or acquit a driver because the union says so is completely asinine.