March 20, 2020

Horse 2673 - Imaginary Bus Loads Of Imaginary People

"a lie can travel half way around the world before the truth can get its boots on"

Regular readers of this blog will probably be familiar with the fact that I tend to cite sources to back up what I have said - a lot. There will often be direct links in a piece or as footnotes at the bottom and sometimes for comedic effect¹.
The reason why I like citing sources is because I think that you shouldn't believe a thing I say. I expect you to question everything and to check the sources. Moreover I expect you to form your own opinions which are based upon reasonable information because I believe that reasonable information leads to reasonable opinions.

What happens then, if those sources of information are themselves not reasonable? I course realise that chasing every single fact down to its original proofs can be a bit tedious but in some cases, if a thing doesn't pass the sniff test, then it might be off.

To wit:
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/bus-loads-of-city-dwellers-stripping-regional-shelves-bare-20200317-p54ax1.html
Regional towns are being swamped by bus loads of panicked "Coles tourists" who are driving from the city to strip supermarket shelves of basic supplies.
The Age has heard reports of city-dwellers rushing supermarkets in Gisborne, Kyneton, Romsey, Seymour, Woodend, Daylesford and even in towns as far away as Kerang and Deniliquin.
- The Age, 17th March

I would expect a media organisation to bother to check to see if a rumour like this was true. While I understand that reporting what someone said on talkback radio might be true in so far as much as they have said what they have said, what they have said might be a lie.
I have not been able to track down who originally said that "a lie can travel half way around the world before the truth can get its boots on" (it has been attributed to Mark Twain, Winston Churchill, George Orwell, Johnathan Swift) but that appears to be what has happened here.
In an act of blatant hypocrisy, I will now list of all of the places that supposedly have had bus loads of pensioners, city people, generic Asians, foreigners etc. descend upon supermarkets in regional and rural areas but not cite my sources (I don't want to bring down hordes of people on social media):
Griffith, Albury, Orange, Lithgow, Bathurst, Gisborne, Stawell, Woodend, Daylesford, Rowley, Seymore, Ballarat, Cobram, Echuca, Shepparton, Bendigo, Parkes, Beechworth, Wangaratta, Picton, Tahmoor, Thirlmere, Kerang and Deniliquin.
When I went to bed last night, I had counted 54 buses which had supposedly arrived at supermarkets; full of raiders who then stripped supermarkets. At no point have I seen even a single photograph of this; which seems odd to me because in an age where everyone clearly has cameras, as evidenced by the fact that there are now loads of pictures of empty shelves inside said supermarkets, you'd think that there should be at least one of raiding bus loads.

Also, a number which is consistently being thrown around is the number 200. There are supposedly groups of 200 people who arrive at these supermarkets; which also don't have any photographs.
A Toyota Coaster bus, has seating for 23 people in its biggest configuration. By my reckoning, if some of those buses broke the law and carried extra passengers, you would need eight of them, in order to make up 200.
If we assume that the bus in question is a Volvo B10M, which is a fairly typical suburban bus, then they are licensed to carry 47 people seated and 23 people standing. You would still need a minimum of three buses. It's not unusual to see three buses in a row² but to have three buses wait outside while 70 people got out and did their shopping? That's a bit weird.

The problem with the bus loads of people descending upon supermarkets theory is that if it was actually true, then there should be a bus waiting outside to collect shopping trolley loads of shopping. If we assume that even one Toyota Coaster was used for this purpose, can you imagine a bus load of people also tolerating 23 shopping trolley loads of stuff accompanying them, hundreds of miles? Does that make any sense?
I find it interesting that it is only rural and regional areas which appear to have been afflicted by this. Notwithstanding the fact that driving hundreds of miles would tend to leave perishable goods vulnerable to perishing, if this is as common as it supposedly is, then there would be buses passing each other. Does that make any sense?

Granted, there have been hordes who have decided to hoard³ groceries but I do not think that they have gone to the effort to charter buses for this purpose. Have you tried to do that? If you are going to hire a charter bus, then they usually require prior warning weeks in advance. Supposedly, there are organised people who have gone to the effort of hiring charter buses and then organised a group of people. The logistics here on notice of even a week are probably more complex than an average person would be prepared to do.
Also, how do you self-quarantine if you are crammed together with 22 other people and 23 shopping trolley loads of groceries in a bus? Does that make any sense?

I'm not going to embarrass people on Facebook and Twitter who have posted this but I will ask that you use your curiosity a little bit to see if what is being said, is true. There are a lot of panicking people who are acting in ways which aren't collectively sensible but might be individually rational. Yes, there are empty shelves which have been caused by people panic buying but to then blame that panic buying on outsiders, including on the grounds of racism, is neither kind nor helpful.

We are all in this thing together and if you do have loads of time because you are stuck inside, you might want to think about slowing down a bit. Let the lies run around the world because they're going to do that no matter what. Instead, sit down with truth for a bit. Make it a cup of tea and sit on the back steps with it. It's having a hard time putting its boots on at the moment. Give it time to put its boots on; then it will be allowed to walk.

¹such as this footnote.
²It's not unusual to see three buses in a row... dah-dah dah-dah-dah 
³How many boards would the Mongol hordes hoard, if the Mongol hordes could hoard boards?
They would hoard ALL the boards with the axe and sword, if the Mongol hordes could hoard boards.

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