A man has been charged with theft of a motor vehicle after taking a Calgary Transit shuttle bus and driving it through the south end of the city.
Calgary Transit bus driver Gurpreet Nahal was parked at Shawville Gate S.E. near the Somerset-Bridlewood LRT station at 10 a.m. Sunday. She said a man came up to her asking how to get to New Brighton.
“He was a young guy, just a regular guy in his 20s or 30s,” said Nahal, who added there was nothing suspicious about the man.
Nahal advised the man to take the shuttle bus next to her. However, the man took her instructions literally and took the unoccupied bus while the bus driver was on a washroom break at the LRT station.
“It was crazy. I’ve never seen it happen,” Nahal said.
“He walked around the bus and got in and he was just rolling. And when he got to the lights he was waiting to make a right-hand turn and that’s when I thought to myself, ‘something is wrong.’”
Nahal immediately called 911 and the Calgary Transit operations centre and then went to track down the shuttle bus driver at the LRT station.
READ MORE: Calgary Transit shuttle bus taken for joy ride
“He was in the bathroom and I was knocking on his door. And then I asked him, ‘are you the 153 operator?’ And he said, ‘yes’ and I’m like, ‘well your bus has been stolen,’” Nahal recalled. “He just came out running and he was surprised, too.”
The man proceeded to do a tour that took him down Stoney Trail and over to McKenzie Lake Blvd. and back to the community of Sundance. With the help of GPS, the Calgary Police HAWCS helicopter and a police car on the ground, the man was pulled over without incident at Sun Harbour Road at Sun Valley Blvd. The whole commute latest 22 minutes.
For security reasons, Calgary Transit wasn’t able to provide details as to how the bus was commandeered.
“We have all lot of security measures in place and those are measures that we would rather not discuss publicly,” said Calgary Transit spokesman Ron Collins.
Collins says when drivers need to take a break, busses are left open so that passengers can still board them.
“The busses usually turned off and the door is left open so that people on the bus can come and go as they please until he returns and of course passengers who were getting on the bus are able to board the bus while he is away.”
All Calgary Transit buses are equipped with GPS trackers, which allows the buses to be tracked at all times in real time.
“This is extremely rare. I can’t remember the last time we had a bus stolen,” Collins said.
Calgary Police Sgt. Cory Thompson said the man has been charged with theft of a motor vehicle and that the bus was driven in an “reasonable manner” on the brief joyride.
Thompson said when officers questioned the man about why he took the bus, the culprit said he “wanted to go for a drive.”
Officials with Calgary Transit are thankful no passengers were on board the shuttle bus and for the quick actions of the driver who witnessed the start of the unusual excursion.
“She’s a very observant operator, obviously,” Collins said. “She did great work notifying first our operations control centre, coming to them with the information immediately. She saw something that looked suspicious, somebody getting into the driver’s seat in the shuttle bus and of course then calling 911 as a witness.”
Comments