Thank You, Magnificant Muni Drivers

Moon Over MUNI
Photo by Flickr user eviloars

Rider Dave Rhodes wrote MTA a letter about two Muni drivers who saved the day when Dave’s wife lost her wallet on the bus.

I’d like to voice my appreciation for two fantastic San Francisco Muni drivers, George and Bernetta. My wife and I had just purchased two Muni passes on March 2nd for the first time, having recently returned to this city after many years. We were on our way home from the Haight district and took the #33 from Haight St. up to Fulton and Stanyon to catch the #5 to Fulton and 25th.

When the #5 came, driven by Bernetta, my wife reached for her wallet to display her pass only to discover that it was gone. Bernetta saw that she was distraught and waved her aboard the bus anyway, stating, “That’s okay sweetie, we’ll work it out.”

We were shown the number to call for assistance and my wife hooked up with a very helpful operator who’s name I don’t know. She was told that the driver of the #33 (George) would be contacted and asked to look for the wallet. While my wife was on a cell phone talking to the operator, Bernetta also called from her bus radio or phone to try and get the other driver to locate the wallet as soon as possible.

We all knew that time was important, given the increasing likelihood that some nefarious character would find it before the driver did and help themselves to it.
After we reached our destination and disembarked, the MTA operator called back to say that the wallet had been located and that we’d be able to claim it from the #33 driver when he came around again. We were given a time to meet him and grabbed another #5 going back to Fulton and Stanyan to wait for him.

When George pulled up he was beaming, and said that he was happy to have found the wallet because so many items are lost or stolen, he was glad to see something have a happy ending. My wife had ID in the wallet so George was careful to make sure it was hers and then he happily handed it over – a check of the contents showed that the newly purchased Muni pass was still in there, along with a number of important documents and credit cards. We vowed then to be more careful and check our wallets and passes before leaving any Muni bus we happen to be on.

A few days later we boarded a #5 bus on Market Street to get back up into our area, and Bernetta was the driver. I didn’t recognize her at first, but she recognized us and said, “Hey, you got your pass back!” She went on to tell us how glad she was it had worked out and that she’d actually been worried about it!

So I’d like to commend two Muni drivers who care – George and Bernetta. To narrow it down because I know there are quite a few drivers, George was driving the #33 route and Bernetta was driving the #5, both on the evening of March 2nd. We’d also like to extend thanks to the phone operator who took our request for assistance that evening, even though we don’t know her name. She was very kind and helpful.

6 comments

  • Karen

    So nice to hear a happy story!

  • A

    I saw a similar incident on the 38-Geary: I was just riding along when a girl hopped on the bus near Cliff House and thanked the driver profusely after he handed her a purse. She was almost crying and he was very humble in receiving his thanks.

  • That’s great! What a nice ‘welcome back to the city’ story.

  • Thanks all. I’ve already encountered a handful of pissy drivers but most of them have been friendly. My wife uses a cane and can’t run (we’re not seniors, she just has some issues with chronic pain) and we were half a block from a #22 stop the other day when the bus whizzed by us and pulled up to the stop. I ran on ahead and barely got there in time to ask the driver to hold for her, which he did. He was nice about it and we chatted for the minute it took for her to catch up. Not worthy of a whole blog post and commendation, but we’ve found that about 80 percent of the drivers have that kind of attitude.

    Thanks Munidiaries for posting this email – I just want George F. and Bernetta P. to get some recognition, since they deal with so much crap everyday.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *