[Maru]

Originally Posted by Cherie

A push is hardly demonstrating violence, if someone tried to enter your home illegally or in a threatening way you would be quite within your rights to push them out, the bus driver is responsible for the bus and his passengers, if he felt this passenger was going to be a threat or cause trouble he had every right to push him off, we don't know the full story here so its difficult to judge why the bus driver reacted but I doubt it was just for being called a prick

If this happened at a hospital reception desk no one would bat an eyelid at the youth being man handled out by security, the guy is on his own, its not like he set about him with a baseball bat, he pushed him off the bus, the only way he let himself down was calling the kid fat, maybe he has done the kid a favour and he will act reasonably in future

That is an interesting take and I wouldn't say it's invalid. It just depends on what society agrees should be the boundaries. Some welfare/social security offices here will kick you out, and yes they will touch to remove you from the premises if you decide to get a little bit too pissy. That may seem OTT to some not accustomed to this, but here, many of these places are really overcrowded and there are all sorts of characters that come into these places. Employees have been touched. I've only been in a few times, but the employees have short-tempers... and to some degree, when you see how many will show up and threaten, lose their sh** over something taking too long or their claim not being expedited, they sort of do have to take matters into own hands sometimes. Literally. They see a lot of resistance.

With city services like metro/transportation, I think the lines are more blurred than that. I would not have a problem with a bus driver removing someone physically from a bus who is being disruptive permitted it's not hitting them in the face and with any force to parts of their body. Just simply a removal from the vehicle. However, it depends on what society, and mainly the passengers helps them feel safe in that environment. So it's not always easy to determine how/where those boundaries should be. Personally, I feel safer when a bus driver does have more tools at their disposal because there are drug runs, gang-related activities, etc that are carried out through public transit. But, we have a police division just for Metro Transit, so probably they have some dispatch potential.