Lunacy

Today a woman boarded with a collection of small kids and a buggy. Many of the little chavs were very young and ran off to the back of the bus. The woman asked for just a ticket for herself. I enquired as to the age of her gang and it transpired 3 of the 6 were of a chargeable fare. That pissed her off immediately - being unable to commit fraud.

Anyway, she paid and moved towards the buggy zone. Except she stopped by the luggage rack over the front left-side wheel and proceeded to lift her entire, unfolded buggy up and place it in the rack on its wheels. This was the first time in the many decades I've been driving buses that I've ever seen this happen.

"What are you doing!" I asked.
"Putting it up here out the way."
"You need to fold it if you want to put it there - what if it fell on a child as they were getting off?"
"Well the other driver said it would be OK".

Ah, that old chestnut; the OTHER DRIVER. This infamous character is the one who lets passengers do as they please. They let them get away with whatever they want yet curiously they cannot be described or named.

She even offered to lay it flat - but fully opened - on the luggage rack, wheels sticking into the aisle at the right height of an infant's head.

"I'm sorry, you either leave it open and leave it there (pointing at the empty buggy zone) or fold it up. It's just not safe to leave it there."

More tutting and huffing and she eventually left it in the buggy zone but buggered off down the back with her clan. To be fair to everyone else, if your sprog isn't sitting in the buggy, then it needs to be folded up.

As I got a couple of stops down the road, the entire buggy tipped back as the under-class mother hadn't distributed all the bags she had attached to it properly. I couldn't resist leaning round and saying to her, as she righted it, "Imagine if that was three feet in the air over the front wheel like you'd wanted at first."

She didn't respond.

Common Sense Solution: As unpopular as some rulings are to passengers, you have to enforce them. Drivers are not only paid a pittance to drive buses; they have to enforce and uphold company regulations and the law. Buggy owners are so selfish. Consistency needs to be maintained and 'the other driver' completely ignored as chances are he doesn't exist anyway. Also, the OAPs are on your side here too as they didn't have the luxury of super low floor buses when they were travelling with their kids.