While we’ve done many stories about crying babies on airplanes, we’ve never really looked into how people handle screaming tots on that lowest level of the public transportation food chain, the city bus.

Out in Oregon, a bus driver is under investigation after she allegedly lost her cool and gave the boot to a mother and her screaming baby last week.

One passenger on the TriMet bus tells the Oregonian that said she was on the bus about 8 p.m. Thursday when the driver made a request over the loudspeaker for the mom do something about her crying baby.

Give the baby “some keys or something,” the driver reportedly said. “I can’t drive with that noise.”

The witness says the baby in question wasn’t actually making that much noise but the driver pulled the bus over and walked back to the mom, who the witness says spoke only a little English. Seconds later, mom and baby were exiting the vehicle.

After they left the bus, the witness says she followed them off and tried to get them back into the bus but the mom declined.

The witness says she told the driver, “You can’t just kick a woman off the bus because her baby’s crying.” To which, she claims the driver responded, “If you don’t like it, you can get off the bus.”

So she did get off, along with a handful of others. The witness says the bus stopped again only a few feet away and all the other passengers exited.

“Every single person got off the bus, and it was a full bus, with just two empty seats,” says the witness. “I don’t care if the baby was screaming her head off, which she wasn’t, you don’t drop a woman off in the dark with her baby.”

A TriMet rep tells the Oregonian that the matter is under investigation, using the familiar refrain, “Obviously, this is something we take quite seriously.”

Over at this blog, the writer claims to have a transcript of a post-incident discussion between the driver and dispatch. We have no idea if this is legitimate or not, so take anything you read there with a huge grain of salt.

Rider says TriMet bus driver bounced mom and crying baby [The Oregonian]

Thanks to Anne for the tip!

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