Passenger Spews On Greyhound, No One Mops It Up

Anyone who has taken the bus cross-country has some kind of unsavory story, but Angela’s got something that hopefully tops anything you’ve experienced. While riding on a Greyhound from Atlantic City to the New York Port Authority, someone yacked all over the floor and no one cleaned it up.

We’ll let Angela share the unsavory details:

Well, here’s a question I never thought I’d be asking: while traveling on a Greyhound bus, if one of the passengers ups and vomits through the center aisle of the bus, does Greyhound have any responsibility to pull the bus over and put the passengers on another bus? And/or clean that bus? Or is it sop for the bus to just keep driving for that last hour, with passengers breathing in the smell of vomit that is now rolling through the aisle on every turn?

I was on a Greyhound bus from Atlantic City to New York Port Authority last night. About an hour away from Port Authority a passenger sitting towards the middle of the bus just leaned over and vomited in the aisle, the length of a couple of rows of seats. And the passenger just…. left it there. This, of course, I do not blame on Greyhound.

What happened next, though, is the part that I question. The bus didn’t pull over, to put us all on a new bus. Ok, well it’s not like Greyhound can just pull a new bus out of thin air, right? Well, the bus didn’t pull over, to do some clean up our bus. Rather, the bus driver just kept going, for an hour long bus ride of the smell of vomit, and people (well, at least this passenger) almost hyperventilating due to mouth breathing. After an hour of that Port Authority has never smelled so good.

I already have an email in to Greyhound requesting a refund of this trip. Not for the vomit, actually, but rather because the 6:55, 7:00 and 7:30 buses all did not show up, so after getting on line at 6:30 for the (no show) 6:55 bus, we didn’t actually board a bus until the 7:50 bus arrived. One missing bus, ok. THREE missing buses? That gets
a request for a refund from me.

But I was wondering about the safety of the vomit- is there an agency that regulates Greyhound? And what is their policy/procedure for something like this? When I’m on the subway and someone vomits I can just move to another car. Was Greyhound required to get another bus to put us all on? This was my first Greyhound experience, but in all my years of living in NYC and taking Megabus and Bolt Bus I’ve never encountered this situation, so if I am unlucky enough to experience a ‘next time’ I want to know ahead of time what the bus company is required to do, if anything.

If you’re privy to vomit-cleansing protocol on private buses, or better yet, if you’ve got a bus story that’s nastier than Angela’s, please share.

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