A seemingly routine trip from New York to Baltimore was anything but for passengers on a BoltBus Friday afternoon.
Their bus driver was allegedly drunk behind the wheel.
The unidentified driver was driving the packed bus erratically while headed south along the New Jersey Turnpike in Camden County causing a passenger to dial 9-1-1, New Jersey State Police said.
The driver was pulled over around 4 p.m. right before the Camden-Philadelphia Interchange (Cherry Hill Exit 4), according to police.
The driver was taken off the bus to perform sobriety tests and was arrested after appearing to be under the influence, cops said.
Alarmed passengers witnessed the whole ordeal and turned to Twitter and social media to share their ordeal.
“The driver of the BoltBus I'm on from NYC to Baltimore has been arrested for drunk driving ~2 hours after we left NYC,” tweeted Tao Lin a passenger on the bus who was going from Brooklyn to Baltimore to visit his wife.
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Passengers were forced to wait on the side of the turnpike for hours.
Despite the reportedly dangerous situation, the passengers seemed to keep a sense of humor:
"Someone said a 'happy hour' joke & everyone laughed," tweeted Lin.
Around 5:20 p.m. another bus arrived with eight empty seats, Lin told NBC Philadelphia.
Lin was one of the lucky ones to get a seat on the other bus the same couldn't be said for the woman who had allegedly called 9-1-1, Lin said. The caller told one passenger picked randomly, 'I saved your life,' said Lin.
After about three hours another driver arrived to complete the journey to Baltimore, police said.
A video posted on the Thought Catalog allegedly shows the replacement driver and a state trooper taking questions from passengers before they went on their way.
The original bus finally arrived in the Charm City at 9:30 p.m., according to passenger Dannika Lewis.
BoltBus suspended the driver pending the outcome of the DUI investigation, according to a BoltBus spokeswoman Maureen Richmond.
The driver has been with Bolt since 2009 and had a good record before the incident, according to the spokeswoman.
"The safety and security of our passengers is our core value and a responsibility we take very seriously," said Richmond. "We have zero tolerance for this kind of activity."
Bolt refunded all the passengers on board, the bus service said.
