If you've been on a bus or train, especially in London, you'll have had an experience where some eejit's playing their music through the speaker on their mobile phone, just because they can.

Clearly Ken Livingstone knows the God-that's-annoying-but-they-might-kill-me sensation all too well. Earlier this week he declared that people playing their music to all and sundry on London's buses could be stripped of their travel passes and thrown off the bus in question.

What he didn't say was by whom:

Speaking before the London Assembly last week, Mr Livingstone said ... Transport for London (TfL) was adapting an upcoming campaign "to incorporate the playing of music on buses".

The campaign by TfL is designed to reduce anti-social behaviour and crime and improve "passenger perception of safety on the bus network".

Calling for an "absolute prohibition on playing music from a mobile system" Mr Livingstone said "people will be asked to leave the bus and in the case of a child with free travel concession they would forfeit it".

[source: BBC News - 'Mayor calls for music-free buses']

Ken, that's great. I hate loud music on buses too. But you're not going to catch me confronting anyone about it, and according to to Jim Buckley of the T&G workers' union, you're not going to catch many bus drivers at it either:

"It would mean the driver having to get out of his cab, thereby putting himself in a situation of potential assault," he told the BBC News website. On that basis, we don't want anything to do with it."

Can you blame them? Only this morning came another story of violence on public transport in London: a 12-year-old girl 'brutally' attacked. In that report, the driver gets rapped for not doing more:

[The girl's mother] criticised the bus driver for failing to do more to help her daughter. She claimed the bus driver did not intervene, call for medical assistance or even stop the bus ... An Arriva London spokesman said: "It would be totally unacceptable for a bus driver to behave in the manner described. We expect drivers to make the safety of customers a priority and summon the emergency services via the bus radio if requested."

[source: This Is Local London]

Granted, you'd want your bus driver to get the emergency services in an incident like that. But get out of the cab and confront the perpetrator, whether it's a knife-wielding maniac or a bloke playing Girls Aloud at 120 decibels? I think any bus driver doing that has a death wish.

The solution for Northern trains has been to employ a private firm on their services:

Private security guards are to ride trains in the north of England to crack down on the abuse of rail staff.

The action follows more than 300 incidents of abuse and assault on Northern Rail staff so far this year.

Rail union RMT said some of its members have been kicked in the head, punched in the face and so badly assaulted that they have taken weeks off work.

Some rail staff have suffered verbal abuse, threats of violence and have been spat at by passengers.

[source: BBC News - 'Security guards on train journeys']

If you're facing statistics like that as a bus or train driver, you're hardly going to go looking for trouble by staring down boisterous youths with mobile phones at full blast. Clearly the trouble is perfectly adept at finding you without you finding it.

I'm no David Sheppard in the Mastermind category of 'bus nostalgia', but I can't help feeling conductors on buses stopped this from even being an issue. Take away the authority figure and it's no wonder mindless hooligans can do what they like on our public transport networks. Even your chavviest teenager can work out that bus drivers need to drive the bus, and won't bother risking anything by coming back there and trying to deal with that loud music. If you get on your bus and you're welcomed by a conductor with nothing better to do than watch you like a hawk, you might share your Jay-Z collection a little less casually.

Having said all this, I'll be delighted to stand in David's bus playing music when he eventually learns to drive it. I'll set my drum kit up in it...