Bus Driver Win

[Headset Hellion]

I don't own a car, so I take the bus around town a lot. As anyone who has used public transit can attest, this can be a huge bummer. It seems like every time I'm running a little behind schedule, the bus arrives and leaves 5 minutes early and then I have to wait an hour for the next bus...but if I'm out there waiting, it's 5-10 minutes late! So let's just say I was feeling a little anxious and tired by the time I finished my grocery shopping and got back on the bus to go home.

When the bus pulled up to the intersection before my stop, there was a car sitting at the green light, waiting for some school kids to finish crossing so they could make a right turn. There was also another car approaching from the opposite direction. The bus driver swerved and drove between both vehicles...did I mention that this is a 2-lane street with no dedicated turn lanes?

When he pulled up to my stop, I said "Thank you," as I was getting off the bus. He said, "Have a nice day!" and I replied, "You too, thanks!" I had taken a few steps on the sidewalk when I felt someone behind me. I looked over my shoulder and there was the bus driver.

He laughed and said, "Gotta get my lunch!" and walked into the corner cafe! He seriously parked the bus on the corner, didn't say a word to anyone...just got off the bus and went to grab a sandwich. I don't know why, but I thought this was so funny. I was laughing the whole way to my front door.

[MoonCat]

We've had bus drivers who do things like this, and actually it's a pain because it can make passengers miss their connecting buses. My advice to him would be to bring his own lunch.

[Headset Hellion]

It was completely absurd. Public transit here is a joke, and we have one cab company. Don't even get me started on that....

[fireheart]

I had one bus driver who parked the bus for around 5 minutes for a smoke break. >.>

[KatherineB]

I had a bus driver who sent me to buy him cigarettes. Did I mention that this was a school bus and I was 14? Yes, it's illegal to buy cigs here as a minor, but I was quite a few kms from home and was afraid he would dump me there if I refused.

Worse, the shopkeeper actually sold me the cigs (a girl in uniform!) and I was too afraid to tell anyone after what the driver said since I was usually the last passenger and wasn't sure what he might do to me. I did summon up the courage after a few months and told my parents, who told the school. Never saw that driver again.

[Kagato]

Some bus drivers need to stop to get meals while on the road, I know from personal experience - I drove buses for a little over 5 years.

Some shifts I had, I spent up to 12 hours on the road, unless I took something like a peanut butter sandwich, most perishable foods would be a food poisoning risk by the time I got to have my meal break (We are required by law to take a meal break at least once every 5 and a half hours, a number of the timetables squeezed every possible minute they could out of the drivers before they got their break, plus the timetables were so tight that if we were late on a single trip, we were late for ALL of them, end of story). That being said, if there was someone wanting a connecting bus that was run by the same company, we could put a message over the RT (Radio Telephone) system, asking for the bus to wait, but if it was run by another company, it was completely up to chance and out of our hands.

EDIT: Yes, there is a cafeteria at the depot, but a large number of duties had meal breaks on the road, so if we did not bring our own lunches and did not have a chance to stop somewhere to quickly grab something, we were completely out of luck, because most of the meal breaks were situated at places that would cause minimal impact, such as at a regional park, which was around 15 minutes drive from the nearest food shop

[hinakiba777]

There are two buses I take to get to school makes a stop 3 stops from my apartment going toward school in order to do the log. For my part, they follow the exact same route so either is fine. But EVERYTIME I am on either bus when I'm not running intensely early, that do that log. Now the log does not need to be done every go around, only at certain times of the day. But it doesn't what time I'm on the bus, it's always when they do the log. And i don't mean like i get the bus for 6:30 and whether I get the 5:30, 6, 6:30, or 7, I get the log. I mean 11am, 4pm, 10pm etc. Always, I grab the bus when they do the log. And due to the bus route three stops away from my apartment actually makes me farther from school.

Oh, and one time my friend and I were on a weird bus route and the driver stopped outside a forensic psychiatric hospital and told us it was last stop. We asked if he was going to the bus terminal, and he said he was. So we asked if we could just stay on until then, as we were now literally in the middle of no where. Nope, kicked us out. We ended up having to walk down to the hospital, which was in the middle of the woods, to ask to use the phone to call a cab. Also it was the middle of the night and raining. We were in the start of a slasher film.