Tax Dollars Hard At Work | Train Operator Vacations Are Over

Gregory Thomas, a 14 year old passenger on Maryland's Green Line metro passenger train got his 15 minutes of fame this week. He managed to take video of the operator "allegedly" nodding off while on duty. The incident happened on June 18th, Fox 5 got the exclusive interview with the teenager.

The video was released on Youtube several weeks after it was sent to the Metro's Customer Service Department on June 23rd. The significance of that date? It came just 1 day after the deadly head on collisions of two Red-Line Metro D.C subway trains.

A total of 9 people (including the operator) were killed with 80 people injured. The cause is still under investigation, yet controversy continues to plague the Metro Area transit system. A week before the deadly crash another "citizen reporter" used their cellphone to bust a Blue-Line operator who was texting.

Looks like these union train operators better get their acts together. Perhaps they wouldn't be nodding off if they weren't putting in so much overtime. A report in 2007 reported that the average operator makes about 50-65k dollars a year before overtime, and upwards of 100k per year with overtime. That's a lot of cash to be texting and nodding off while on the job.

Looks like the vacation is over. All this bad publicity has resulted in a 0 tolerance policy being issued for all future offenders. The operator who got caught texting got a 5 days suspension and is back at work. He should consider himself lucky.