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High-school students, Green Line riders learn emergency brake works
By adamg on Wed, 10/13/2010 - 1:11pm
More than 100 Brighton High School students were ordered off two Green Line trolleys this afternoon after somebody pulled emergency brakes on the trains by BU West.
MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said MBTA Transit Police made the decision to clear the trains of high-school students after nobody would own up for the two lunchtime incidents. He adds, "tomorrow, Transit Police Lt. Michael Shea will go to Brighton High School to speak with school administrators about the incidents."
News of the incident first surfaced on Twitter. Around 12:50 p.m., Eric Gittleman tweeted:
Three T cop cars and a stopped B line train at Packard's Corner. Train just moved but cops still around. What's up?
Eight minutes later, MBTA General Manager Richard Davey replied:
some hs students pulled the emergency handle on the GL train to be funny. It wasn't.
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Comments
Mothers, don't chuck your
Mothers, don't chuck your newborns out the window, or this kind of brain damage can result.
More than 100 Brighton High
LOL, this makes it sound like the train came to a screeching halt which caused the one hundred students to fly through the windshield.
Oh, THAT kind of "ejected"
My first thought was "that train must have been going pretty darned fast for 100 kids to be ejected when the emergency brake was pulled". The mental image was AWESOME though
Changed
Because, yeah, the more I looked at that sentence, the more it sounded like they went flying through the windows.
Dammit, teenagers, this is
Dammit, teenagers, this is why we can't have nice things!
The punishment
Multiply the length of the delay by the number of passengers on the train, and make that the length of the jail sentence.
if i saw that happen
i would immediately point him/her out to the police. If they tried to get off before the police arrive i would call mbta police and follow the him/her. Fucking arrogant little punks can stay off my lawn.
Possibly a stupid question...
...isn't school in session? What are 100 students doing out and about in the middle of the afternoon?
Now, MBTA please explain
Why a large number of kids, who the MBTA has contracted to transport, who did NOT pull the brake, had to find another way home?
IF I were a parent with a kid on that train I would be pissed at the brats who pulled that lever AND AT THE T.
Mass punishment? That is NEVER appropriate. Let's see them try that on adults the next time some perv decides to display? I'm sure there would be much UHowling over that!
(and if I found out my kid did do it then there would be some consequences - like, no license until age 18 for a start ...)
Code of the street
You're snitching, or you're hitching.
Never Acceptable
That's a presumption of guilt that is highly inappropriate. That also puts kids in danger of being beaten up by jerks who have made their lack of respect clear already, and it presumes that EVERY KID saw what happened.
Can you see from one end of a green line car to the other when it is packed? If you say you can, then maybe your x-ray vision qualifies you as a perv, no?
how should they have handled
how should they have handled it?
They should do what they plan
They should do what they plan to do next - address it at the school level.
And, maybe, like other cities do: get some f'n video cameras already! That way, they can figure out who did it and nail their arses and leave the kids with no part in it alone.
What they did is one of the things on the list of "don'ts" in anti-bullying systems. Collective punishment may make some older males' balls tingle at the thought of pushing around a bunch of kids, but it is simply a form of adult bullying - not to mention that it isn't effective discipline.
You're calling for more
You're calling for more surveillance cameras on the T?
So not only do we have to treat kids like criminals because some parents raised dumbshits, but all people who ride the T have to be treated (even more) like criminals?
Wrong wrong wrong wrong
Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.
The MBTA is a fare-based system, and remains private property operating for the well-being of the public. As such, any passenger or group of passengers can be ejected at the discretion of the operator or the MBTA police.
Good call, for once, by the T.
Was my principal there?
My high school routinely punished all of us for the bad behavior of individual students. This seems no different.
I loathed collective punishment....
...back in my school days. I lost all respect for any teacher who used this so-called method of discipline.
Haha, since the emergency
Haha, since the emergency brakes worked so well I'm assuming the trains involved were Type 7's and not 8's. Perhaps a few more trips on the 9701, 9702, and 9703 (supplemental bus routes/trips from Brighton High to Ruggles, Andrew, and Jackson Square respectively) might be in order?
Actually, I think they had
Actually, I think they had some sort of early dismissal and that's why the kids were on the Green Line instead of the 9701/9702/9703 "supplemental" buses.
Also, I think somebody said the MBTA is "contracted" to carry the high school kids. The MBTA does not run any contract service to any school. School districts can buy passes to distribute to the kids, but their is no contract to cover the actual cost of the added service. All those extra buses running to/from Medford High, Malden High, Boston Latin, Lynn Classical, North Quincy High etc are extra trips operated by the MBTA on their own dime to carry the extra demand put on the system by the school districts. They are not "charters" or contracted buses, technically anybody can ride them, and most are identified by footnotes in the schedules of the regular bus routes the trips supplement.
So, if there was indeed an early dismissal,
then why wasn't the T notified to have those extra buses on hand (which shouldn't have been a problem during the middle of the day), instead of forcing those students onto the Green Line?
As for the "collective dicipline" of forcing all the kids off the train involved (which I don't agree with, having had more than one teacher during my high school years who thought it was the solution to any problem that arose in the classroom), were these kids prevented by the T police from boarding any of the subsequent trains?
Note that, while visiting New York some years ago, I was on a Lexington Avenue express train when some "prankster" pulled the emergency stop while we were going at full speed. As such, I have no sympathy for anyone who thinks comitting such an action is "funny".
Kids
They can pull the brake all they want so long as they shut the hell up while riding the train. The ride from BU to Park is a shriek factory. I love ending my work day having to reminding some carbohydrate-enhanced thug wannabe sitting on the outside seat with his bag on the inside that bags go on laps, people go on the seats.
Jesus, I hate the green line.
/Get off my lawn
How did they know who was a
How did they know who was a high school kid? Did they just say, "You look kind of young, get off the train"?