A closer look
Sixteen-year-old Darius McCollum famously hijacked a New York City subway train in 1981 and drove it flawlessly for several stops before anyone even noticed he wasn't an actual employee. The transit-obsessed teenager had memorized every single manual, schedule, and operating procedure of the MTA, essentially possessing more knowledge about the system than most of the actual train operators. Instead of hiring this undisputed transit prodigy to fix their perpetually broken system, the city arrested him, sparking a lifelong cycle of transit-related incarcerations. He spent the next few decades stealing buses and trains just to drive them perfectly on schedule, doing the city's job better than they did. It is a tragic testament to bureaucratic rigidity that they locked up their biggest fan instead of just giving him a uniform!






