A bus was taken for a ‘joy ride’ in Ontario. People were allowed to board and leave, police say

A man drove away with a bus with the passengers still on board, Canadian police said. Photo / Thinkstock

At first, none of the passengers on the bus noticed anything eventful during their evening journey.

Then they realised the bus was diverting from its usual route - and the person controlling their bus was not actually a bus driver.

In fact, the 36-year-old man driving the bus around Hamilton, Ontario, had stolen the vehicle for what police described as a “joy ride”.

He entered the bus while the real driver had pulled into a bus terminal and exited for a short break.

The man drove away with the passengers still on board, Canadian police said.

Luckily for the passengers on board, the thief seemed to have no interest in making a quick getaway - instead, he continued to drive in the Hamilton Mountain area, making stops to allow passengers to alight and board the bus - and even making one customer pay in coins after noticing that their bus pass had expired, police said of the incident last Wednesday.

“Nobody really thought anything of it until they noticed that the route that the driver was taking wasn’t the scheduled route, wasn’t the one that they take every day - at which point they confronted him,” Hamilton Police Service spokesman Trevor McKenna said in a telephone interview yesterday, adding that there were about 10 passengers on the bus at any given time.

“He ended up going down a side street and one of the passengers actually had to provide directions,” McKenna said. “This isn’t a typical day in Hamilton.”

The real driver of the double-length articulated bus also alerted the authorities, who co-ordinated with the bus owners to track the vehicle’s GPS, police said.

Not knowing the driver’s motive or the full circumstances of the event, and not wanting to scare the driver, officers followed at a safe distance without using their lights or sirens “until it was safe to go in and engage with him”, McKenna said.

He added that police were able to arrest the man within around 15 minutes of the theft.

The man, of no fixed address, was charged with offences including theft, obstructing police and driving while prohibited, according to a police statement on Thursday.

McKenna said yesterday that police are continuing to investigate but have not named the individual, who has already appeared in court, as “there could be a mental health component to this”.

“On the surface, the entire story is comical. However, it’s dangerous, it’s a really serious situation,” McKenna said, noting the size of the bus, and the risk to pedestrians, passengers on board and the driver.

“We’re just thankful there were no collisions and no one was injured during this, but it could have ended tragically,” he added.

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