A woman whose tirade on a bus was captured in a viral video acknowledged that she acted emotionally, but insisted that the driver was in the wrong for not letting her alight after she missed her stop.
In an interview with HK01 Tuesday, the woman, surnamed Chan, said she is “not a spoiled princess” and that she had asked the driver nicely to open the door before lashing out.
Chan spoke out a day after the three-minute video circulated online, showing the woman standing next to the driver and yelling at him to let her get off the bus.
“Open the door! I’ll file a complaint against you!” She shouts in the clip. “The bus was still at the stop when I came downstairs!”
The driver responds calmly. “Miss, the bus has already driven off by the distance of two vehicle places.”
When the driver says she can get off at the next stop, Chan yells, “How do I f***ing know where the next stop is? I’m in a rush!”
Even as the driver stays silent, she continues her invective and starts slamming the walls of the bus.
“You think you’re f***ing in charge? How old are you? Did you just start working as a driver?” She shouts, threatening to call the police.
In fits and starts, the woman continues yelling and cursing at the driver until she alights at the next stop.
According to local media, Chan was riding the 270A bus around 2 pm Tuesday and intended to get off at the Yau Ma Tei Fire Station.
She told HK01 that she was rushing to an important meeting at the time, and that should was blocked by a man when coming down the stairs from the upper deck. By the time she walked downstairs, the bus door had closed, so she asked the driver to open it.
“It’s not what people are saying online, that I asked to open the door for no reason. I’m not crazy, I’m sure that the bus hadn’t started when I got downstairs. It’s like the driver deliberately wouldn’t let me get off,” she said.
But she conceded that she is not “100% in the right” and apologized for swearing in public, though she said she would not apologize to the driver.
Kowloon Motor Bus Co. said in a response to media that seven people alighted at the fire station stop per security footage. The company added that the bus had already driven a distance of around 24 meters when the woman walked downstairs, so the driver asked the woman to get off at the next stop.
Seemingly in response to the incident, KMB posted a reminder on Facebook Tuesday evening that commuters should push the bell and stand near the exit of the bus to prepare for alighting.
