AN ALLEGED CONTINUOUS MULTI-MINUTE CONVERSATION ON APRIL 6, 2017, ON MOPAC EXPRESSWAY BETWEEN AN ON-DUTY CAPITAL METRO BUS DRIVER AND AN ADULT FEMALE PASSENGER

On Tuesday, April 11, 2017 1:03 AM, John McMillan wrote:

April 11, 2017

Dear State Rep. Gina Hinojosa in Austin, Texas,

I would also be very grateful to you if you would please ask the Capital Metro mass-transit authority here in Austin to do more to help prevent multi-minute continuous conversations between an on-duty Cap Metro bus driver behind the wheel while transporting passengers, and a passenger on that driver's bus.

This would help to protect the safety of all passengers on Capital Metro buses---including university students and primary- or secondary-level students---as well as the safety of other motorists and pedestrians.

I might add that this type of public-safety issue is doubly critical, as I'm sure you would agree, during periods in which a Cap Metro driver is transporting passengers on an expressway.

A RECENT EXAMPLE OF THIS TYPE OF CRUCIAL PUBLIC SAFETY ISSUE, BASED ON HANDWRITTEN NOTES THAT I AS A PASSENGER JOTTED DOWN AT THE TIME WHILE RIDING ON THE CITED BUS:
At about 4 p.m. Thursday, April 6, 2017, I as a passenger on Cap Metro Bus Number 9356, a northbound Express-Route 982 (983?) bus traveling on Mopac Expressway, observed that the Anglo male driver was in the process of having a continuous multi-minute conversation for (what later turned out to be a total of) roughly 10 consecutive minutes, or possibly longer, with a bespectacled female Anglo passenger seated on the right side front seat of that bus.

The conversation inside the bus between the two of them while the bus was in motion may have begun at roughly 3:55 p.m. that Thursday, the approximate time when I believe that I myself may boarded the cited Express bus at a bus stop along West 38th Street near Lamar Boulevard.

Among the topics the male driver and the cited female passenger discussed with the bus in motion, in what appeared to be a first-time conversation between the female passenger, a self-identified married woman, and the male driver, a self-identified married man:

--raising dogs as pets and gardening and raising chickens at one's home.

--a question from the driver in which he asked the cited female passenger where she lives.

--the factual information that she herself resides in the Anderson Mill section or subdivision.

--the factual information that he himself also resides in the Anderson Mill area.

--the factual statement that he himself previously lived on a farm.

The conversation between the two of them ended when the cited female passenger got off the bus at Great Hills Trail and Research Boulevard at roughly 4:05 p.m. or 4:10 p.m. (4:15 p.m.?) on Thursday, April 6, 2017.

"Good talking to you," the driver stated to his female conversation partner as she exited from that Express-service bus at the bus stop along Great Hills Trail near Research Boulevard.

During the bus ride, the female passenger explained to the driver as the Express bus continued in motion that she planned to visit a Costco store after she exited the bus at that bus stop. "They have good steaks," she stated.

The male driver while continuing to steer the vehicle in motion then replied: "We're (my wife and I) not a member there. We have a friend who's a member."

At about that time the cited female passenger leaned forward on the rail in front her right-side seat, and made a comment of some type in which she stated that she also likes H.E.B. supermarkets.

"I like H.E.B.," the driver then commented in response while continuing to steer the bus in motion. "I go to the H.E.B. in Cedar Park."

Rep. Hinojosa, I hope this factual report is helpful to you as you diligently evaluate on behalf of the Texas Legislature whether Capital Metro is doing enough at present to fully protect the safety of all bus passengers--many of them University of Texas at Austin students and Austin Community College students and primary- or secondary-level students of local public or private schools.

Please do not hesitate to call me or write to me if you have any questions, or if you would like me to meet with you in your legislative office in downtown Austin in regard to any of the public-policy issues I have cited or alluded to in my e-mail letters to you.

Sincerely and Best Wishes from a single adult male constituent of yours and a former Texas Department of Public Safety full-time employee,

John Kevin McMillan.
My home phone: (512) 342-2295.
My home address ever since late September 2015:
Village Oaks Apartments, 10926 Jollyville Road, Building 9, Apt. 902, Austin, Texas, 78759.
My Blog: John Kevin McMillan: A 21st Century Conservative Left-Wing Agenda
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