A little perspective
In light of recent events, Greyhound Canada has pulled a new ad campaign. The promotion, which included posters and ads in handbooks at universities, aimed to remind people that the stress of commuting could be reduced by taking the bus. In what seemed clever at the start of the campaign, the posters promoted the slogan “There’s a reason you’ve never heard of bus rage.” Greyhound is doing the proper — and sensitive — thing by pulling the ads. But the online petition to beef up security at Greyhound terminals, now 600 signatures strong, is entirely misguided.
Drunk drivers are responsible for an average of four deaths in Canada every year, yet we still take to our cars and hit the road in record numbers. There were 594 murders reported in Canada last year, but we still walk the streets. We walk those same streets, every day, despite the number of pedestrians who get hit by cars. I recall a time in the summer of 2006 where as many as eight pedestrians here in Waterloo Region were struck in a two week period, some of them fatally. Lightning kills ten people in Canada every year, yet we still go out in the rain. In all of my 30+ years on this planet, I have heard of one beheading aboard a bus. One.
In no way am I trying to make light of this senseless tragedy. But if you think this is a story about bus safety, you’re not thinking at all.