Is Britain becoming an unsafe place to be?

While on the way to collect my wife from work, I was listening to the Jeremy Vine Show on radio 2. He was talking about how an Australian, by the name of Timothy Smits, was stabbed on a London bus in Dalston. I admire Timothy's bravery for trying to stand up to the 3 yobs, and I sincerely hope he doesn't have any long lasting post traumatic stress from the incident.

What amazes me about this incident is how the bus driver did absolutely nothing throughout the whole incident. I was a bus driver for 10 years on London buses, and I know what I would have done. The drivers are in control of the bus and make decisions on what to do. The drivers of today are protected by a perspex barrier, so the yobs would have had a much more difficult task of getting to the driver than at one of the defenceless passengers.

On one of my journeys on route 286 (now known as 340) from Edgware to Harrow-on-the-Hill, I had some disruptive youths causing havoc upstairs. I immediately pulled over to the side of the road, and using the Public Address system made an announcement that the bus would not be going anywhere, until the youths got off the bus. When one of them threatened me, I just told him I was getting paid whether I drove the bus or sat still. He was welcome to stay on the bus until the Police arrived to arrest him if he wished. At which point the youth and his mates then ran off.

My purpose was to inconvenience these idiots. Where I stopped the bus, was on part of the route where no other service travelled, so these Yobs would have had to wait for another 20 minutes before the next bus came along. As we had radio contact with our Garage, it was easy to send out an alert to other drivers to be aware.

In my 30 year career working on London Transport (buses and Underground) I have been assaulted only 3 times. It is only the first assault that I still have the odd nightmare over, and this happened nearly 15 years ago! It was my own stupid fault for not assessing the situation properly (that the Yob wasn't alone) realising that I shouldn't have tried to tackle the Yob smoking on a train! I ended up being headbutted by one of the Yob's mates! With hindsite, I would have acted completely differently. I would have still confronted the Yob who was smoking, but I would have used a different tactic other than trying to grab the Yob's cigarette from his mouth! Instead I would have gone for the fire extinguisher and used it on the yob! (well there was a fire, right?). More importantly, I would have had a very useful weapon to defend myself with if they decided to threaten me with violence.

What worries me about society today, is how the Liberal do-gooders have eroded all forms of discipline in this country. Now, young children grow up knowing that they cannot be touched by any adult, no matter how obnoxious, violent, and intimidating they be. As they grow older they think they cannot be disciplined by anyone. In this day of CCTV, I cannot understand why schools are still not allowed to discipline unruly children in class. If a child is being disruptive in class, why can't the teacher discipline them? With the CCTV footage available, the evidence will be there to protect both child and teacher. Surely it is in society's interest to show these Yobs that they cannot continue to terrorise everyone around them with impunity. By instilling discipline at an early age, will have major benefits of having far fewer troublemakers growing into adulthood, and creating an even bigger problem for society.