Troy Ryersee has been overwhelmed by the positive attention he’s received since a video of him giving a brief speech went viral.
Standing at the head of an Ebus en route to Merritt from Kelowna, B.C., he launched into a little speech he said he’s made many times before.
“It’s bad weather,” Ryersee told his passengers.
“It’s winter. I don’t care how long it takes to get over there. All I care about is your safety. That’s it.
“So if I’ve got to go 30 kilometres an hour all the way to get to Merritt, and it takes me five hours to get there, that’s what we’re doing, folks.”
The video filmed and posted to TikTok by passenger Lexi Reid has had a million views and elicited a ton of praise both online and in person.
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“It’s been absolutely amazing,” Ryersee said. “I would like to thank Lexi Reid for recording and posting that. It’s been such a positive experience for me for the last few days. I’ve heard a lot of positive comments from the public, my co-workers and my operations manager.”
Ryersee said he’s been driving a bus for 20 years, first with Greyhound and then when the company left he went to Ebus.
That means he’s seen plenty of treacherous roads due to inclement weather and that’s where his speech was born.
“When it’s really bad weather I like to be direct and tell my passengers what’s going to happen,” he said.
“We can get behind sand trucks and accidents and sometimes I need to pull over the bus, so I like to be direct. I like to stand up in front of my passengers so we can have that connection.”
A couple of times, he said, people clap when they hear the speech.
“And I always have passengers who thank me — us Canadians are very polite people — but I’ve never (gone viral),” he said.
He said passenger safety is the most important part of the drive and he said that’s how every driver feels.
In an earlier interview, the TikTok poster, Reid, said other passengers were impacted by his speech.
“You could tell the other passengers felt protected and a lot of stress was lifted off our shoulders by having such an amazing driver,” Reid said.
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