Why would he lose his job? I think a reprimand is pretty much what he deserves. It's all he would get if he had stopped the bus to run into a shop for 5 minutes and left everyone sitting there (which, by the way, has happened to me several times).

Of course he should lose his job. He locked the passengers on the bus, for crying out loud!

You can't "lock" a passenger on a bus. They just felt that they couldn't get off because the driver didn't open the door for them and they felt he should. They were just being sheep that were conforming to the social norm...

he last time a driver did this to me, I used the lever myself and walked off the bus.

Milgram experiment.

"Passengers said they looked on in stunned silence, fearing the driver may be preparing for a terrorist attack on the bus. No one was able to get on or off the vehicle during the five-minute prayer session."

Seriously? How did this happen?

These could be tests - it's creepy not only that they do this, but that people would sit there for five minutes against their own better judgement.

The fact that no one got up and left the bus is not a good sign.

Passengers said they looked on in stunned silence, fearing the driver may be preparing for a terrorist attack on the bus. No one was able to get on or off the vehicle during the five-minute prayer session.

The fact that no one got up and left the bus is not a good sign.

The fact that they appear to have done nothing by stare at the driver and each other in amazement - despite thinking it might be a terrorist attack - is not a good sign. No knocking out of windows. No pushing open the door(s). No restraining the driver. No using a cell phone to call the police.

If he was praying like a proper Muslim should, then he must have stuck his ass up in the air. Someone should have kicked it.

The big difference between the rude bus driver who runs into the shop while on duty & this guy is that, while the passengers in the first scenario may have been plenty pissed off, they would have had no reason to believe that the errant driver had left a bomb on board. Muslims, on the other hand, actually blew up a bus full of passengers in London not that long ago.

There's no excuse for this guy. Nowhere in the Koran does it say that pious Muslims will burn in Hell if they say their afternoon prayers at 3:45 instead of 3:15. Bus drivers have scheduled breaks. Use them, for crying out loud.

on the one hand... people were prolly worried that if he was legit, then THEY would have gotten prosecuted for some kind of hate crime had they done anything... on the other... this is a herd of lemmings and not a pack of wolves. I'm glad they weren't wrong, but they prolly didn't learn anything. When a driver acts in an out of the ordinary way, you have to act on suspicion. Even if he's just high or drunk, he can maim or kill many people with such a vehicle. AND? Zazi was a bus driver too...

As to why people didn't leave the bus. I'm guessing that he was probably kneeling in the aisle, blocking people, unlike someone running off to grab a snack. he was probably partially blocking the way out.

On a related note, here is another article from the Daily Mail about abuses by Muslims and the Brits willingness to just rollover or pretend like it is not happening...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249393/9-11-bombers-heroes-What-Muslim-children-told-Christian-teacher-forced-job-tolerating-racism.html

"As to why people didn't leave the bus. I'm guessing that he was probably kneeling in the aisle, blocking people, unlike someone running off to grab a snack. he was probably partially blocking the way out."

Oh the horror!!! ...and what a completely insurmountable, impassable obstacle that must have been....

These aren't turkey's they are people. I would like to know that my fellow humans have available to them the smallest bit of problem solving skills when it comes to potential life threatening situations...(see Conan's post above).

The article says the passengers were unable to leave the bus. I assumed it meant it was locked, but maybe he just blocked the exit. Whichever.

Point is this guy has got some loose luggage in the overhead compartment. I wouldn't feel safe with him as my driver.

The driver sounds like a guy who is building up an anger about Western civilization and his place in it - and, as such, will be ripe for recruitment by a jihadist cell.

SwissArmyD wrote: on the one hand... people were prolly worried that if he was legit, then THEY would have gotten prosecuted for some kind of hate crime had they done anything.

This is kinda what I was thinking too. People are either afraid of being accused of being intolerant, or afraid of being blown up. You almost can't win either way...
Honestly, I am sure I would have wrestled with it myself for a moment. My inner monologue would have been, "Wait, why did we stop? Is he...on the floor? PRAYING!? What the fuck!? Wait is he praying?!Is he actually praying for Allah because he is devout, or is he about to blow us all to smithereens in the name of Allah? What the hell? I gotta get to work man! Do I get off the bus? Do I call the cops or do I wait it out? What if I try to get off and then he tries to grab me? What if he really is just praying and now I look ignorant and racist? What if I don't get off the bus in time? What if I get off and then he blows it up anyway? What about all these people? What do I do? Oh hell..."

The only difference, is I would have made my decision to get off the bus, whether or not he was in my way, after about 30 seconds... not 5 minutes. Once it became clear to me that he was going to be a while, I would have tried to climb over him or, if that wasn't possible, opened up the emergency exit and gotten right outta there while using my cell phone to call the transit authority/cops. Of course, I have to remember that in the UK, they are much more PC so this doesn't really surprise me that it happened there with very little reaction. That would definitly not fly over here. Especially in NYC. That would have lasted about one second before somebody grabbed the driver up off his knees.

Amy wrote: I'm proudly intolerant of anybody who wants to forcibly convert or murder the rest of us because we don't believe in astrology. Or, er, Allah.

I always say "I am intolerant against intolerant people." I have made my fare share of UnPC remarks when faced with it and have been called a "Bitch" more times than I can count. I don't really care. I don't have the desire to play nice with those who would try to do me harm anyway.

> That would definitly not fly over here.
> Especially in NYC.

I gotta believe you're right. Or in Texas. Or in Kentucky.

In a break with established habit, I've decided to read Amy's link before further comment.

My speculation was that the guy was a new immigrant, a bus driver from North Africa, where the passengers in his bus were likely to be compliant, illiterate villagers for whom such treatment wasn't unusual... But bus driving (in the United States at least) is a position of moderate sophistication, once all the certifications are considered.

These are cultures in wihch the power to whimsically delay the progress of a dozen other lives –and I've got my own very good reasons for doing so, thank you very much– is something devoutly to be wished.

About 15 years ago I was in line to pay for some blue jeans at the Ross discount clothes store in this shopping center across from the Farmer's Market. One of the biggest Jewish neighborhoods in America is just to the East, but it's still very much a "melting pot" area. So anyway, five customers ahead of me, there's a holdup as a customer has to go deal with something... Find a different size or take something up with a manager or whatever. So the checkout girl just folds her arms and stares into the middle distance with a zombie gaze I'll never forget. And the people in my line (there were a lot of us) just exploded. "Yo! What's going on up there! Keep it moving!" And the girl fell into robotic, defensive rage, in a Russian accent: "What can I do? The process has stopped! We have to wait!"

The checkout guy in the next lane, who had his hands full himself, made time to say "Reina, deal with it", and to meekly tell us that if it were his line, he'd have set aside the troubled purchase to keep things going forward. But our girl was lost. That's how things go for Russians. Their culture has been all about petty oppressions and submissions to power for centuries. They know dick about initiative.

Most gratifying were the customers in front me (a black guy) and behind (a latino) who shared their grumblings with me in brotherly alliance. It was fun to say to them "This woman's got no idea what it means to be American", and have them instantly, cynically agree.

Back to the story from Britain, this quote from a passenger is notable as well:

The NHS administrator added: "It even went through my mind that this might be some sort of terrorist attack with the bus blown up because I had heard that suicide bombers prayed before attacks."

That's some pretty intense obliviousness... That your thought when someone locks you inside a bus is that they might be a terrorist. In Oklahoma –no strangers to prayer, those Okies– they'd assume you were an ASSHOLE, religious or not, and beat the shit out of you once the doors were open. In Texas, they wouldn't care what your motivations were, they'd just wail on your ass anyway.

(continues - dodging filter)

A culture that lets bus passengers such as the "NHS administrator" think about such matters in terms of global interactions and government responses rather than individual actions is obviously in deep trouble. These people are sitting at home leading their lives in ostrich-perspective isolation, counting on everyone around them for protection from reality. As with the French: It's immoral for a culture of such intense narcissism to allow immigration.

And of course, that's a tragedy too. There's lot of stunning beauty to be found on this cultural verge, just as on any other. (Turn up speakers; hit play button at top right. Glory! — including the chick vocals, even if she's flat. Autotune would have been infinitely worse. Errors like those remind you that there is (was) a living woman in there, and you start to wonder what kind of skirt she's wearing....)

That's how things go for Russians. Their culture has been all about petty oppressions and submissions to power for centuries.

The NHS administrator added: "It even went through my mind that this might be some sort of terrorist attack....

So, the immigrant from a totalitarian regime and the National Health Services bureaucrat had the same reaction to a hiccup in the system, do nothing and wait? Surprised?

And we want to implement a bureaucratic healthcare system in this country.

'Zactly.

Same dang thing happened in Atlanta long time ago, musta been, oh, back in ought-nine. Yup. Ought nine:

http://www.ajc.com/news/marta-bus-driver-suspended-188965.html

their personal beliefs/ritual should not inconvenienced the passengers, who have no choice but to travel on that bus. hopefully, there would be a better alternative bus service so passemgers don't have to put up with this kind of lousy bus service, in any part of the world.

After reading the article, I feel that I need more information on the topic. Can you suggest some resources please?, Excellent post!

Gee! I thought they hired the guy to drive the bus, not act in his own self-serving interests.

"some resources please?"

Jihadwatch has the best daily roundup of news on this topic:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/

The proprietor, Robert Spencer, has written several outstanding books (The Truth About Muhammad, Stealth Jihad, etc). If you buy them on Amazon through Amy's Mall (see the list of links under Amy's picture in the top left corner of this page) Amy gets a small kickback.

A great source for European news on this topic is

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/

Anyone who's lived in the UK would not be surprised that they sat still even while wondering if they were about to get blown up. 'Watching the English' by Kate Fox is a brilliant, amusing and extremely accurate book about the English, and yes, Jihad watch is an excellent blog about Islam, although a little out of touch about the reality on the ground in the Middle East.