First off, I want to note that there are lots of great bus drivers at TriMet who deal with a relatively tough job by being friendly to riders, giving directions constantly, and one time personally offering the entire #36 bus licorice on a rainy night when I was going to Lake Oswego for some reason.

But it appears that Claudeen Hendren, who retired from TriMet this week before the agency could fire her, was not one of those awesome drivers. TriMet was going to fire her after two incidents where she kicked mothers of crying children off the bus gained a lot of attention. I think it's sad to vilify someone for one or two incidents, but, uh, it turns out Hendren had gathered 112 customer complaints since just 2009. According to TriMet, she'd improved a lot in the past 10 months, receiving only 2 customer complaints. But seriously. 112?! That sounds like the kind of systematically bad apple that TriMet is better off without.