Missed Stop

Sometimes passengers are in worlds of their own and through their daydreaming they miss their stop. Usually, the bell is rung not long after the missed stop and the passenger rushes to the front, asking to be let off. If there's a stop very soon indeed, I usually pretend I'm a little deaf and ask them to repeat themselves, by which point we're at the next stop and I've not had to do an unscheduled stop. Often these unscheduled stops can be in places that aren't too safe and the passenger just thinks you're being a bigger twat than normal by not stopping the bus immediately.

Today, a woman rang the bell as I was level with a bus stop at the junction of the main road and Street Y. I was doing 40mph at the time - the speed limit at this point along the route. I did wonder if she wanted the stop in question, but at 40mph and parallel as the bell was rung, there was no way I was even going to contemplate slamming my brakes on. I was starting to slow though as I was making the next left turn, into Street Z.

As I turned into Street Z there's an immediate bus stop. The woman who pressed the bell as I was passing Street Y started to complain that I was going the wrong way as I turned into Street Z. She thought that I was turning a street too soon, into Street Y. That's how much notice she was taking. As I opened the door, she must have realised her mistake.

The nasty bitch then started to bollock me for not stopping at the stop before!!

Can you believe it?! I was going to argue, but luckily a number of people were leaving here - all of whom wanted to leave here and her protestations were drowned out by my thanking others leaving the bus here. I made no eye contact with her, just said "Thanks!" on a number of occasions as everyone else got off.

Common-sense solution: We all miss our stop. I've daydreamed before and gone the wrong way. That's life. If I can stop safely I will, but usually that's not the case. So you have to walk back a block - deal with it. Most do. This woman was so unaware she hadn't realised she'd gone past her stop and yet chose to tell me off for not stopping for her. I'd have needed to know she wanted the stop before she rang the bell - late. I sensed there'd end up being a slanging match, which is no good for anyone. I was happy in the knowledge she'd rung the bell too late by anyone's book and this would be shown using the CCTV. This only happened today, so expect a follow-up entry if she phones to complain!

Laughing in my Face

I started to load some people on my bus recently and they were all OAPs travelling for free with their bus passes. The fourth in line was a black woman who asked for her destination while placing her hand by the side of the ticket machine, where the ticket would come from. She looked fairly old but didn't ask for a concession to X or show a card and ask for X. I told her the fare. She spluttered.

She pointed to her purse, which was open, inside which, amid the numerous coins and cough sweets, was a bus pass in a money bag. You could only see it was a bus pass by the location of the colours on what otherwise could have been anything credit card sized.

Silly me, I then did what I'm paid to do and asked her to show me the pass. There are quite a few that are running out of date and we're told to offer no leeway at all as what we get back per journey is so shit no operator is willing to give an inch when the error is the passenger's and the passenger's alone.

This black woman seemed surprised that I was asking to see her pass. Looking bewildered she got it out and showed me it but it was still in the money bag and I couldn't see the expiry date or, more importantly, that it was her photo on it.

"Well I've never been asked to do this before!" the woman said, laughing nervously. I suspect the volume of her voice was so that others on the bus could hear how unreasonable I'd been when actually they'd all done what I was now asking her to do except they'd done it without hesitation.

I checked the pass - in date and it was her beaming smile - issued her ticket and off she went. As she was about to go up the stairs, she said to anyone in the lower saloon who wanted to listen that "I've never come across such a bully in all the years I've been travelling on the buses!"

There's only so much I can stand, so I turned round from the cab and very publicly informed her that if she did not like showing her bus pass to obtain a FREE, yes, FREE journey on the bus, could I suggest that she get off and catch the train to her destination. The woman headed back to the front, if only to shut me up as the tables were now turning and it was she who was being embarrassed.

With her face right in mine (wrinkles and all!) she just burst out laughing. Just a very long cackle. I'd love to have thrown her off. But it would be one of those situations where the local press would be involved. I'd have to say that I removed her from the vehicle for laughing in my face, which compared to the conduct of the most troublesome of passengers, is a very minor offence.

I told her to go away and she did - upstairs, silently.

Common-sense solution: Sadly, ignorance is rife in all manner of life. This woman may not have wanted to make her age obvious to everyone else on board so assumed she'd just put her hand by the ticket machine to await her free ticket. I don't suggest all bus passes be thrust into the driver's face or slammed against the assault screen, but they need to be displayed clearly. I'd never seen this woman before so familiarity wasn't to blame. In the scheme of things, laughing in my face is not a smackable offence, regrettably. Rise above it. It's hard, but I think this dozy cow wouldn't dare do the same to me again.

Walking to the Light

There are a few things that passengers do that bemuse me. As 'avids' will know by now, I come across some right thickos in my job. I can try and fathom why they act as they do, but sometimes there is no explanation. One such example is when a passenger is stood at a bus stop in the correct place - just where you'll pull up - but upon you indication and pulling up to the stop, the put their head down and walk towards you, leaving the place they were stood which happens to be the place you'd geared yourself up to stop at.

They start walking towards you, remaining on the path.

Why?

Just stay where you are! You may have (or may not have, in so many cases) hailed the bus to stop and seen the driver apply the left indicator, so guess what? He's pulling over to allow you to board.

Why then walk towards the bus that's heading at you at speed?

STAY WHERE YOU ARE!

I wonder what a psychologist would make of this?

Common-Sense Solution: Just pull up where you'd originally budgeted to. Don't brake any harder to stop sooner as this will detract comfort for your existing passengers. Go past the person walking towards your headlights like a lemming and pull up precisely where they were standing. Make them walk back to you. They might learn.

Ten pounds will do!

Over the past few days I've run out of money twice. First was at the start of the week when everyone was paying for a £3 fare with a £10 note. What few £5 notes I had soon went and thereafter I was dishing out seven £1 coins per person. I add to the basic float I'm given but I soon ran out. Unlike the competing bus company in the area, I don't have a 'no change voucher' option; I have to hand-write an IOU slip and the passenger has to make their own way to my depot to collect their change. This can be many miles away from their location and when they realise they'll have to pay more in bus fares/petrol than the amount they're going to collect, they get very annoyed indeed.

We're told to be hard-line on this. We have to tell the passenger that we are not obliged to offer change at all but do so to encourage travel but on the occasions when we run out of change through no fault of our own, the only option for travel is for the driver to issue the passenger with an IOU and for this to be redeemed at the company premises. The passenger also has the opportunity not to travel.

It causes aggro. "But it's money!" said the guy to me on Wednesday when he offered me a note that required £17.90 change. I had about £400 on me, but all in £10 notes. "For fuck's sake. What kind of shoddy outfit are you running?" he added.

Indeed. Adding to this that we're not obliged to offer change at all only makes things worse. It's a bad procedure that causes unnecessary animosity for all but the managers.

Common-Sense Solution: If our ticket machines cannot be configured for it, a carbonated note pad should be offered where we write down the amount the passenger is owed and for this to be worth that value to any driver from the same company, upon production by the passenger. I could then tell the passenger that: "I can't give you your change, but I can give you a piece of paper that's worth £17.90 but only to drivers of my company who I'm sure will be only too happy to exchange for you, provided they have sufficient change to do so." The passenger wouldn't need to go to the depot, just to go without their change until they see another bus driver from my company - be it when they get to their destination, on their way home or the next few days. Simples.

Zig-Zag

A new supermarket has opened in an area of town where there had been a section of hail and ride. Steps down from the main road to the new superstore have been built and so too has a pelican crossing. Annoyingly, this has all happened precisely where we used to stop for passengers. There has never been a bus stop sign or markings of any description here before, now there are just zig-zags denoting the pelican crossing.

It is an offence to stop of zig-zag lines, mainly because you obscure the view of the crossing from other road users - especially when you're driving a double-decker bus. So, we do not stop here for passengers now on safety and legal grounds. But now the old stopping place is in THE most convenient place for people, as lots want to use the superstore.

Today, a lad flagged me down literally feet away from the pelican traffic light. I slowed, indicated, and gestured to him that I was going to stop beyond the zig-zags. He spotted what was happening and jogged up to where I stopped. All was well, I thought.

"Very fucking funny, mate!" he said as he got on. I thought he was messing, but no.

I told him I can't stop there as I'm blocking the entire crossing and I'm also on zig-zag lines. He shook his head as if I just tried to question his unshakable belief in his football team.

"You're not right in the head, that's all I can say!" was his response.

Common Sense Solution: You're always going to get responses from people like this. You tell them the law - the ultimate 'how it is' - and they somehow think it is sad or that you're some sort of lemming, blindly following the rules to the nth degree (when often it is they who are doing lemming impressions by paying £30+ per week to see 11 of their idols kick something that was historically a sheep's bladder around a football pitch for 90 minutes). Some don't like the fact that you've made them run and people on the bus can see you've forced them to do something they don't want to do. It's as if you're challenging their self-styled alpha male credentials. 


The way forwards is to make sure you do this every time you are flagged down by someone in this location and to get your company to site a proper bus stop in a safe location in the vicinity. It is far simpler to point to the new stop and say "that's where we stop now". Once again, hail-and-ride is just awful - the root cause of all manner of arguments and cross words just for operators and local councils to save money on bus stop infrastructure.

Land Rover Drivers

Most of them are cunts.

It's that simple. A good example played out before me today, though unusually I won.

There's a narrow bit of road one of my routes passes along, where to historic buildings were built a little too close to each other to make a two-way section of route possible. So, the white line in the centre of the road ends and unusually there are no priority signs showing. Usually, one direction has priority over the other, but not this narrow gap.

My rule is surely the fairest - the first one at the gap has the right of way. Some bus drivers take the view that they're the largest so they have priority despite the oncoming vehicle reaching the gap just before they do. The bus driver will get into the centre of the road before he needs to, thus forcing the oncoming (usually smaller) vehicle to stop back.

Today I got to the gap before the oncoming cunt, sorry, Land Rover driver. As I aligned myself for the centre of the road, I became concerned that I was going to have a head-on collision as the oncoming cunt showed no sign of slowing down. On the phone? Texting? Reading a book? Re-filling his pipe? Extinguishing his tweed jacket? Who knows.

He was actually speeding up to get to the centre ground first. It's not as if there wasn't much in it. I wasn't sure what to do so stopped dead, right in the middle of the narrow bit. Cunt decided to stop, so no collision, and then he stopped leaving a gap the width of a Mini for me to pass through. So I chose to stay stationary. So did he.

Then he used both arms to gesture I just move out of his way. Picture the scene. The first 20 feet of my bus is through the narrow gap and in front of me, almost head on, is a cunt in a Land Rover telling me to get out of his way.

I adopted one of my favourite poses. Folded arms. If that doesn't have an effect after 10 seconds, then get some reading material out and place it on your steering wheel.

There then followed a lot of 'horn abuse' from said cunt as he realised I'd won and he'd lost. Back he went. But not much. Not enough even. I moved forward part-filling the gap he'd left. He had to go back some more, accompanied by more horn-blowing. This time I had sufficient room to pass. As I did there were more horn blasts as he screeched away.

Common Sense Solution: Anyone driving my bus at that time in that location would have been greeted with the scenario I did. Probably folding my arms and reading the paper while the impotent driver slowly realised that unusually his larger vehicle was not going to win this argument. It's a good idea not to get into confrontation with these people. You never know what might happen - some cunts have knives. Stand your ground and if your bus has CCTV mention it back at the depot as it can be downloaded and often shows in great clarity what the cunt tried to do. Often these cunts phone up and claim you've done something to them on par with rape.

Just Plain Thick

There are two bus stops located along a stretch of road I was driving along today. The first is at a memorial and the second is by a school. They're around 0.25 miles apart. A woman flagged me down right in the middle of the two stops today. I stopped and let her board and after she paid I asked her to wait at either the memorial or school bus next time. She said she'd phoned my company before venturing out (sensible!) and that they'd told her there was a bus stop located by the school (all correct). The punch line, if that's what you call it, was not what I was expecting:

"I wasn't sure how near the school they meant so I thought I'd just stand outside my front gate to make sure."

Bullshit. Complete and utter fucking arse. The lazy cow couldn't be bothered walking to the bus stop - clearly sited outside the frigging school - and so thought she'd flag me down outside her house. She also dropped into the conversation that she wasn't used to catching buses. It shows.

You see buses stop at these things called bus stops. This way, it ensures everyone is treated fairly and that the bus isn't unnecessarily delayed by stopping too often, for example, for the idle wankers who want a personal taxi service at a fraction of the cost.

She asked for the suburb I was heading for he city centre.

The city centre most of my services call at has two major bus stops. On the way in is a row of stops at the far end of the pedestrianised area and beyond that is the second and final stop in the bus station. As I approached the centre, most alighted at the first stop, outside, by the pedestrianised area. She and a couple remained on for the bus station.

Mid-way between the two points, the idle woman got up, strolled to the front and said: "Here please!" Ha! Yeah, right. Now it was pay back time. I tried the old faithful at first, ignoring her completely, in the hope she thought I simply hadn't heard her, but this woman was having none of it. "I said HERE please!"

"I'm sorry, the next stop is the bus station. We only call at the bus stops I'm afraid!"

"Well I want to be at that shop there!" she said, as we whizzed past it at a very satisfying 30mph.

I told her that as it was mid-way between the two stops (a bit like her house) she had to walk regardless of which stop she chose to leave.

Then she started moaning very loudly about how dire the service was and how glad she doesn't have to rely on buses and how rude and ignorant the drivers are. I then lost it. I slammed the brakes on and shouted. JUST SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP AS I COULD CRASH THE BLOODY BUS WITH YOU GOING OFF ON ONE!

All that investment in my Driver CPC and NVQ going right out the window. She sat down and shut up. Perhaps I should mention that at my next training course, that it could be an effective way in which to deal with dickhead passengers?

The sensible thing to do now is back-track, but in such a way that the passenger doesn't know you're doing it. She'd plonked her fat arse down directly behind my cab, so I said fairly loudly that there was CCTV fitted throughout the bus and that my boss takes a personal dislike to passengers distracting the driver and stopping between bus stops and it can compromise safety. I also added that I'd already broken the rules by picking her up in between stops earlier in the route.

The plan was to make her sufficiently aware of how her actions would not be condoned by the depot and so she wouldn't dare phone in to report the incident as her story would effectively drop herself in it.

Needless to say, I've now got a mental image of her and shall be driving past the next time if she flags me down in between stops.

Common Sense Solution: Exactly what I did. Initially point the error out to the passenger (as I did) and hope they learn from it. Many will and many won't, usually in equal measure. If you should find you have a thicko who doesn't quite understand anything you're telling them, you may need to re-emphasise the point in another way, if this presents itself - luckily for me it did when she wanted me to drop her off in between stops. Yes, you'll get hassle but at the same time you're investing in a trouble-free life for the journeys to come as she won't dare recreate the situation. Probably.