Greyhound Canada: How to piss off all your customers without actually making them any safer

I used to really, really hate traveling by bus, for a variety of reasons (among them, that the contraptions make me a little queasy) — so it just goes to show you how dreadful flying has gotten, and how unreliable trains have become, that in recent years the long-distance coach has become my travel happy place.

The simplicity of bus travel is beautiful: show up 10 minutes before scheduled departure, pick up a reasonably priced ticket, toss your bag in the pile next to the bus, hop aboard and take a seat, any seat. On the other end, you grab your bag from the curb and you’re on your way.

No taking off shoes, no awkward pat-down by a strange man, no metal detectors, no bag tags, no nonsense.

But no more.

Starting tomorrow, Greyhound Canada is set to ban all carry-on luggage (excluding purses) from their buses, in the wake of a string of stabbings and — of course — this summer’s horrific beheading/cannibalism incident.

I can well appreciate the need for increased security measures (currently up here, there is not even the token security screening of U.S. Greyhound operations) but banning carry-on is absurd, and here’s why:

1. It won’t make us any safer.

How many knife-wielding assailants do you know who carry their weapons in their wheelie bags? None? Yeah, me neither.

Everyone I know who carries a knife (and, admittedly, that’s not a whole heap of people) does so on their person. So simply banning carry-on, with no accompanying pat-downs or metal detectors, doesn’t do a damn thing to prevent knife crime on buses.

2. It puts all our valuables at risk.

When the hapless young clerk at the station informed me of the new policy today, the first words out of my mouth were, “But what about my laptop?!”

Greyhound Canada doesn’t actually expect me to let their drivers carelessly chuck my laptop bag (also jammed with camera equipment and electronics) under the bus, and then dump it on the curb at the end of the ride, for anyone to walk away with while I’m still on the bus, waiting for Susie Slow to zip her coat up in the middle of the aisle?

Ummmm, to quote Cher from Clueless, “As if!”

No way, no how. Without a secure check-in system, asking us to put our most important valuables under the bus is completely unreasonable.

3. It ignores the realities of long-distance travel.

This summer, I took the bus from New Orleans to Los Angeles — a forty-hour ride that was tough enough as is, but which would have been pure hell under this new policy.

Besides knives, let’s take a quick tally of the things Greyhound Canada has just banned: books, laptops, snack foods, water bottles (unless it fits in your purse), diaper bags, changes of clothes, deodorant/toothpaste/hairbrush/etc (again, unless it fits in your purse), ohh, I could go on and on.

Last time I checked, the only amenities available on board a Greyhound bus were the ones you carried on yourself. Goodbye, amenities. Hello, vastly increased discomfort.

4. It’s a complete corporate cop-out.

Note that both actions suggested above — incorporating metal detection and pat-downs, and creating a secure check-in system — would require staff and money. While simply banning carry-on, putting all the responsibility on passengers, is free.

I’m no fan of pat-downs and bag tags. The past few incidents have been tragic and upsetting, but I’m willing to take my chances with the psychopaths of this world — so long as I can keep my laptop and a snack handy. But if Greyhound Canada was serious about our safety, about preventing these incidents, airport-style security measures would be the way to go.

As it stands, all they’ve managed to do is inconvenience the vast majority of their customers, and put our belongings at risk, without making us one single whisker safer.

Way to go, Greyhound. I can tell this policy came straight from the finest minds in the transportation industry.

Photo by njt4148 (Creative Commons)