Instagram account captures people who fall asleep on transit

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – If you’ve ever nodded off on transit in Metro Vancouver, your picture may have wound up on Instagram.

NEWS 1130 caught up with the man behind the account @dreaminontransit, who says the idea was born out of boredom.

The account captures every shade of sleepy life on the SkyTrain or a bus — from a gentleman with his pants just a bit too far off his waist, to one couple unconscious in a loving embrace.

Suffice it to say, the account runs the gamut of how put together we all look when we’ve nodded off.

Michael (last name withheld) runs the account. “I take transit to work all the time. It was just something I always saw and I always found kind of funny, to be quite honest. So, I had this idea of making an account.”

He adds most of the people who find themselves on the account are pretty good sports about it. “I’ve had other people who haven’t been caught with some negative reaction about how there’s a privacy issue.”

Just to be clear, it’s not against the law to take a photo of someone in public.

TransLink can’t comment on the legalities of this, but Jill Drews with the transit authority explains what officers do if they come across someone who fell asleep. “It’s not really that uncommon to see someone sleeping on the train or bus but when we do or when it’s reported, staff are trained to check on the sleeping person’s well-being to make sure they’re alright.”

If you pass out on the SkyTrain, transit staff will try to wake you up.

“On a bus, the operators — once they get to the end of their route, they’ll use the PA system to try and wake up the sleeping person. A lot of time, the customer has just fallen asleep by accident and they’re actually pretty grateful to be woken up. The last thing they want is to be really, really far past their stop or left on a bus sleeping for hours. Our stuff… we discourage them from touching the customer to wake them up. If our staff are unable to wake up the person by speaking with them or using the PA system, they’ll call transit security or Transit Police for help.”

If anyone wants their photo taken down from the Instagram account, Michael says he’d be more than happy to do that, you just have to let him know.

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