From today's Bremerton Sun:

For the second time in seven weeks, a state ferry on the Bremerton-Seattle run reversed course to drop off a crew person stuck on board after his shift had ended.

The car ferry Sealth departed for Bremerton at 8:50 Friday night. About five minutes later, it stopped and returned to Seattle's Colman Dock. It arrived in Bremerton about 15 minutes late.

The same thing happened Dec. 15 with the auto ferry Walla Walla. At the time, Washington State Ferries officials and the captain himself called his decision to turn back a mistake. The captain said he didn't want the ferry system paying overtime for two engineers who forgot to get off. http://www.thesunlink.com/news/2000/february/0209a1a.html

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), February 09, 2000

Answers

And why is this another reason why the ferries ought to be privatized? A private company would most likely be MORE concerned about not wanting to pay overtime to its employees and MORE inclined to turn back than a state run operation that, according to most people here, isn't too concerned about keeping costs down.

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), February 09, 2000.

A private company would say. "When you didn't get off you became a passenger." Oh I forgot...or Oh I didn't mean to is a liberal/government excuse............not a private enterprise reality.

why do you continue to insert government stupidity into the private sector?????

Were thes meatballs too stupid to realize that their relief had taken their places at the job??????

Or was the REALITY that the meatballs weren't doing anything to begin with and weren't in any position to SEE that their relief was now on the job?

Or is it that there really IS NO JOB for each of the 'engineers' that ride back and forth all day????

I figure the last is the answer.

-- maddjak (maddjak@hotmail.com), February 09, 2000.

Far be it for maddjak to come up with a logical response.

Well let's see, I would imagine that it is currently written into their contracts that they are on duty until they leave the boat. Either that, or the time clock is located on the dock, so they can't clock out. Neither one of these items has ANYTHING to do with it being a government job. The contract could just as easily be one written for a private company, and it also wouldn't matter with the time card.

You can keep pretending that this has something to do with it being a state operation, but this could happen on a private operation just as easily as a public one.

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), February 09, 2000.

I'm with maddjak on this one. The airlines recently canned a pilot who stalled a planeload of passengers because he didn't get the dinner he wanted and chose to go out in the terminal and find something else. WS Ferries business record is a litany of poor decisions and poor performance. This goes from insisting on stainless steel pipes that aren't seaworthy and have to be replaced at $700,000 out of pocket taxpayers expense, to the uneconomic decisions that make the passenger ferries more expensive to do their primary tasks (moving people) than the car ferries. This shows in groundings, destruction of docks by being rammed, and numerous other incidents that are well documented in the news annals (and in the USCG maritime investigations). Even in a DOT that resembles amateur night (and that on a good night), WSF is known for it's rotten business practices necessitating high subsidies.

And Patrick, my apologist for any bureaucratic stupidity friend, this DOESN'T happen in private business, because you quickly go OUT OF BUSINESS if you allow these things to keep happening. It's called the discipline of the marketplace. We did it with the airlines, taking them from a government regulated monopoly into fairly free competition, and guess what? More service. Cheaper real prices. And it would happen with the ferries if we'd let it. Not cheaper FARES necessarily, but cheaper trips. If someone is poor, buy them a voucher. But don't expect vouchers to go from your downtown Seattle job to your half-million dollar waterfront estate on Bainbridge or Vashon.

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), February 09, 2000.

The story was carried on the 5:00 PM channel 7 news tonight. The WSF spokeswoman and I did not catch her name said "it will not happen again".

Anyone willing to place a bet on that one?

-- Wayne A. (wga1943@yahoo.com), February 09, 2000.

That's what they said the LAST time it happened.

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), February 10, 2000.

I'm a little confused Mark, you say that this sort of thing doesn't happen in the private industry, but you give an example of where it did in the paragraph before. Kinda disproves your own argument.

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), February 10, 2000.

"I'm a little confused Mark, you say that this sort of thing doesn't happen in the private industry, but you give an example of where it did in the paragraph before. Kinda disproves your own argument. " Only if you are so blinded by your own pro-government bias that you can't read. THIS HAPPENED ONCE IN PRIVATE INDUSTRY AND THE GUY WAS FIRED. In the case of WSF, this has now happened TWICE and nobody has been fired. What's more, foul-ups at WSF have been happening for years with no one getting excited about it because the tax money will keep rolling in anyway.

Can you not see a difference between these two situations? If not, then your dogma is getting in the way of your ability to see clearly.

-- (mark842@hotmail.com), February 10, 2000.

RE: "I'm a little confused Mark"

He's A LOT confused, Mark.

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), February 10, 2000.