Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Mother kicked off bus because her baby was laughing too loud

An Australian mother and her 13-month-old daughter have been allegedly kicked off a bus because the young girl was making too much noise. Toni Hay and her baby, Heather, got on the Darwin Bus Service bus at Casuarina to get home to Coconut Grove. Ms Hay said her daughter was loud because she was excited.

She said she was told by the bus driver that if she could not quieten her daughter down she would have get off the bus. "She's 13 months old, what can I do.' "Little Heather was strapped in her pram and Ms Hay said she was making"happy squealing noises."



About eight minutes into the journey she said the bus driver yelled out that if she couldn't keep her daughter quiet then they would have to get off the bus. "Heather was squealing because she was happy and the driver threatened to throw us off," Ms Hay said. A distressed and embarrassed Ms Hay said she apologised to other passengers and gave her daughter a biscuit and a drink and tried playing with her.

"She wasn't screaming or carrying on or anything, she was smiling and happy," she said. The driver threatened to throw her off the bus two more times and Ms Hay said after that she kicked them off. "The woman was like 'Right, that's it. I've been telling you since Casuarina that you're going to have to get off the bus if you can't keep your baby quiet,' " she said. By this time Ms Hay said the next stop was theirs and they disembarked any way.

4 comments:

Ratz said...

If it was just a short trip I'd say put up with it, but given how large Australia is that could have been a heck of a long journey with one squealing child making everyone else's life a misery.

There are planes where you can pay extra to smoke, I'd pay extra to be on a plane without children, same with a restaurant.

Unknown said...

"Quieten"? Is that even a word?

I checked. It's a clunky, outdated word, but it is a word. Yuck.

cath said...

I think it's more common in Australian English. I know my Mum, an Aussie ex-pat, uses it.

Miss (Aussie) Liss said...

I imagine if it was the joyous, gurgling laughter of a happy baby, the rest of the passengers would have staged a revolt. I suspect it was more a case of the child being revolting.

And... quieten down you blokes, we say that all the time. ;o)