The driver of a Bangkok-Lop Buri passenger van will be fined and blacklisted by the state-owned Transport Co and also faces the sack after a video of him slapping a female passenger’s face went viral online.
The assault took place on Thursday evening in the Rangsit area and involved a driver later identified as Mana Ngamnern, Transport Co general manager Jeerasak Yaowatsakul said on Saturday.
The state agency has asked Mr Mana to report to its offices. He will be fined 5,000 baht and the van he drove suspended from public service for seven days, said Mr Jeerasak.
As well, he said, the contracted operator of the van will be asked to terminate its employment contract with Mr Mana, and all other van operators will be instructed not to hire him.
The incident came to light when the assault victim wrote about it and posted a video on her Facebook page on Friday.
She said she had boarded the Bangkok-Lop Buri van at the Wang Noi van queue in Ayutthaya on Thursday after returning from a trip in another province.
Before getting into the van, she asked the driver whether it would go to Mahachai in Samut Sakhon, where she works in a hospital. The driver told her that she had to connect with another van at Rangsit or at the Mor Chit bus terminal in Bangkok. She then asked him to drop her at Rangsit.
On the way, she received a phone call from a colleague and they were talking about their work schedule, said the woman, adding she had not said anything about the van driver during the 19-minute conversation.
After the van arrived in front of Future Park Rangsit shopping mall at 4.42pm, she and some passengers got out. Suddenly, the driver walked toward her and slapped her face, wrote the woman.
“I was puzzled at the time. I didn’t know the driver before and I swear I didn’t say a single word referring to him during my phone conservation,” she said.
Before the incident, she said, she heard the driver call out, “Why did you blame me?” At the time, she said she did not know he had been talking to her. She then turned her head to look at him to find who he was referring to. She got the answer when he slapped her face, said the woman.
Video taken from Mai Nur Facebook page.
