Buses and peak hour traffic...

[FastFoodFlunky]

When I used to take the bus to high school (I now drive, thank god) I had the most bothersome bus driver. First off, if you were passing our bus on the road, you'd think this lady was driving some cardboard cut-outs of children. I say this because she had a rule that we were to sit perfectly straight, with our hands folded neatly in our laps, with as little movement as necessary (I'm not kidding). Also, she would focus more on watching the kids and yelling at us over the bus intercom than the road.

She would drive 20mph on a road with a speed limit of 45 simply because she's too busy yelling at somebody for trying to listen to their CD player.

When traveling the most popular route to school in my city, we have plenty of those traffic lights that only let about 5 cars go per green light before turning yellow again, if we're lucky. And it takes FOREVER for the cycle to repeat. When we're sitting at a red light, she would cause us to miss about 2 green lights because she simply didn't watch traffic at all, trying to get us to abide by her "posture" rules. We'd literally be sitting at one traffic light for about 10 to 15 minutes sometimes.

She was the driver that would take us home...we had a different driver that handled our route in the morning.

As we were going to school one morning, we heard the afternoon driver over the radio that all the bus drivers use, yelling that she had just plowed into somebody

She had rear-ended somebody that was waiting for oncoming traffic to clear so they could make a left turn.

The driver was probably too busy watching the kids talking to each other and yelling at them to shut up.

School bus from hell, that was.

[Broomjockey]

I would also like to add some more balance to this thread by mentioning some of the tales my dad the truck driver tells me on a weekly basis. And he drives nights, so he shouldn't be running across that many people.

On a regular basis my father has to deal with drivers pulling stunts such as speeding infront of him and then slamming on their brakes so that they can make their turn. Or the ones who cut him off and then slam on their brakes for a yellow light. Some drivers sit at a light that's just turned green as my dad approaches, and force him to stop before they finally go. Or the drivers who pass him to only go slower than he was going in the first place. Drivers try and squeeze past him while he's trying to turn. He has to watch out for drivers weaving all over the road, or not signaling properly, and all that fun stuff too.

Thus ends my additional balancing. We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

[HYHYBT]

he shouldn't be running across that many people

Given the topic, an interesting choice of words...

[Broomjockey]

Given the topic, an interesting choice of words...

My dad hasn't had a single vehicular collision since he began driving his truck. The worst that's happened is he's hit some animals.

Also, I believe, the term would be "running into," not "across."

[Kilamon]

This morning, after picking up donuts for the office (the benefit/curse of being in IT is that perception is 9/10ths and people love donuts so they forgive the fact that you killed a server they were on ) I was on a major boulevard, 2 lane each way with a center turn lane. This woman turns left from a business driveway not in to the center lane, but half in and half facing me in my lane. WTH is that? Can't decide where you want to be? I flashed her with my lights (My horn doesn't work) and she flashes me back and flips me off! It's my fault she's not in the middle!?

I don't understand drivers today. It used to be that if you missed your turn, you were in the wrong lane to turn, whatever, you took the hit, made the safe lane change asap and went around the block. Now, it seems, that people will stop IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD until traffic clears AROUND THEM and then they'll turn. No kidding. I've seen it several times. Someone will stop in the second lane with their turn signal on and wait for everyone to get around them so they can turn right from 2 lanes over.

I only wish paintball rules were in effect. If you get 4 or 5 paintballs on your car, no big deal. Thirty or fourty, the cops pull you over and question your mental stability. Any more than a hundred and you go to weekend traffic school.

[Dips]

I only called somebody in once. It was one of those mini-van school buses for special needs students. The driver was speeding, tailgating and weaving all over the place. I probably wouldn't have bothered calling, if she hadn't had pupils in the van with her.

Of course, I then felt I needed to do something nice for a good driver. I saw a truck manage to avoid an accident with a car that pulled up from the right (which is a giant blind spot) and merge right in front of him. By all rights he should have flattened the idiot. I called the 800 number and told them what a good driver they had. More people need to do that.

My father-in-law drove a truck for 60 years and also owned a trucking company. He had the perfect personality for driving a truck: the ability to remain calm in the face of raging stupidity. He hired people with the same trait.

If you look around and see the idiotic things people do around trucks, you'll begin to appreciate how good the majority of those drivers are. Can you imagine how much more dangerous the roads would be if the average truck driver drove as badly as the average car driver?

The road I take to work is a major truck route and some things I've learned to make sharing the road easier for me are:

1. Most states don't allow trucks to use any but the first two lanes. If you are travelling in the second lane and a truck is coming up behind you, move over so he doesn't have to pass you on the right. It's much safer and your ego can handle it.

1a. If you are in the right lane with nobody in front of you and a truck is stuck behind a moron in the second lane who won't move over, you can help him safely pass on the right by slowing down a bit and flashing your lights twice to indicate when it is safe to move in front of you.

2. The large gap between the truck and the car in front of him is a safe following distance, not a handy gap for you to change lanes into.

2a. If you do merge into the gap, it might take a while before the truck is able to back off to a safe distance behind YOU. Just remember it was your choice to be in the position you put yourself into, so be patient.

3. If a truck passes on your left, don't accelerate. The right side of a truck is mostly a blind spot. If you speed up, you're going to be ahead of where the driver expects you to be. If anything, ease off on the gas a little to give the truck more room to move in front of you. If you are feeling extra polite, flash your lights twice to let him know when it is safe to move over. If he flashes his brake lights at you quickly, that means he is saying "thank you." Most truck drivers say "thank you."

3a. Since we are talking about blind spots, when you come around a truck from the right, you have no right to expect that the driver will see you or know you are there. It's safest to assume you are invisible and act accordingly.

4. When you are merging onto the highway and there is a truck in the right lane less than 50 yards behind you, yield. Just tap your brakes once to indicate that you are not planning to bolt out in front of him. Ease off a bit on the gas so the truck passes you quickly, hit the gas to match speed with the back of the truck and merge behind it. If the driver moves into the second lane to give you room to merge, be nice enough to give him room to get back into the right lane in front of you. If he lets you merge in front of him, say "thank you."

5. If you are in the second lane and are about to pass a truck in the right lane near a merge point, consider holding back a bit in case the truck needs to swerve to avoid a bad merger. You can indicate that you are giving him room by flashing your lights twice.

6. Somtimes you are going to run into an asshole truck driver. They are rare, but they piss off other truck drivers just as much as they piss you off. Just stay out of their way and report them if you can.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

My mother called the nearby school about a month ago over an incident involving one of their buses.

We were on our way home (she had picked me up from work) and had turned off onto the bridge on Phillips Avenue, close to the local CBS affiliate station.

Right in front of the tv station, there's a lane that runs parallel at an angle coming from Highway 29, while the bridge crosses over 29 and ends at Summit Avenue.

We witnessed 3 schoolbuses in a row, waiting at the Yield sign. First two buses made their way though just as we were coming up across the bridge.

The third one, which had a big blue Handicapped sign on the back of it, pulled out onto Phillips right in front of us The driver didn't look, slow down or anything - just pulled on out.

We noted the bus number and when we finally got home a few minutes later, my mother called over to Gateway school, a couple of blocks from our home (it's a specialized school for physically challenged students) and discussed the matter with the person who oversees the buses.

Turned out the bus was one of theirs. And Mom was assured that the driver would be talked to about the matter that day.

Luckily, the bus didn't have any students on it. I'd hate to think of having a child in a wheelchair having to ride the bus home and the driver behaving like that behind the wheel

[Discourtesy Clerk]

Ah, buses. I spent a year and a half living in a small rural city with no access to a car, so my memory's just rife with interesting city bus tales.

The one coming to mind for this thread was the one time I actually saw a bus get rear-ended by a small car. I was walking down the sidewalk adjacent to the fateful intersection, zoned out with my MP3 player and minding my own business, when I look over just in time to see Mr. Inattentive crunch his compact into the bus's rear. I busted up laughing. I guess he'd jumped the gun a bit, thinking the bus was going faster than it actually was, or maybe he was watching only for the light to turn green without checking to see if the huge metal thing in front of him was moving yet, but it was so painfully obviously his fault. Dumbass.

The bus had hardly moved and was barely scratched, but Inattentive's front end was pretty crunchy. As would be expected, of course. Buses are solid, genius. I stood there long enough to take stock that none of the passengers or morons involved were friends of mine, and went off on my merry way...unlike idiotface and all the innocent passengers he made late for work.

Wonder why I refuse to drive?

[Becks]

We're on I-78, a little ways outside Newark when this large RV passes us. Instead of checking that he's all the way past us, the idiot starts back into our lane while we're in the way! I had to go on the shoulder to miss him, and I laid into my horn HARD. Did he hear it? Doubtful, but if he did, I hope he realized what he did.

Happens all the time in NJ. Is it any wonder that I avoid Rt. 3?!?!?

[repsac]

While not about busses, something rather amusing I thought I should pass on was this:

It comes from an old friend of mine who lives in Sweden or Norway. (I forget which, and for that he will beat me senseless if he finds out.)

Over there, they have a rather sizable amount of "trams" or streetcars in place of busses. Now most of the times, these trams run on their own tracks out of the way of traffic. However, some times they have to cross one or two lanes to get to a stop, making life hard on your every day driver if they're not paying attention. Remember, a train car has no steering wheel.

Well, a few years ago, he sent me this picture of a sign which is defined as a "pinch" point. Basically it means the tram is going to shift to one side and then go around a curve so it doesn't hinder traffic. Picture a four way crossing, with the tram occupying what would normally be the shoulder or a series of parking spaces in the road. That's the "pinch" point since the tram had been in one of the lanes until then.

In the picture, you see this huge yellow sign demonstrating the pinch point, and then this tram sitting there with a very expensive sports car squished up against its side.

Per claimed that the driver had decided that the tram could wait while he went in to get his dinner at a store. So he had parked in the pinch point. This was fine until a tram decided to occupy the same space at the same tine.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

My mom almost got creamed by a semi flying through a busy intersection in town. She said it just cruised on through a red light. She didn't know if the driver just wasn't paying attention or couldn't stop in time so he just kept on going.

And now for something completely different (but just as stupid, if not more):

My dad is a huge fan of sprint car racing. The big race event for these particular cars is held each August in a small town in Iowa. Just about everybody who is a fan of this particular kind of racing comes to watch the races.

As I mentioned, this happens in a small town, and every business in town opens up its parking lots for people to park their cars in. Many people end up having to park miles away along the roadsides and walk to the track.

Not too far away from the race track is a set of railroad tracks that get used fairly regularly. Some dry-pool diving team members, assuming the tracks weren't in operation, decided to park their vehicles along the tracks so they wouldn't have far to walk.

You don't need a very vivd imagination to figure out what happened when a freight train came screaming into town. My dad told me the resulting crash could be heard at the track and a couple of the cars burst into flames.

[IT Grunt]

Not too far away from the race track is a set of railroad tracks that get used fairly regularly. Some dry-pool diving team members, assuming the tracks weren't in operation, decided to park their vehicles along the tracks so they wouldn't have far to walk.

You don't need a very vivd imagination to figure out what happened when a freight train came screaming into town. My dad told me the resulting crash could be heard at the track and a couple of the cars burst into flames.

And thus a valuable lesson is learned: Never assume tracks are abandoned. I can just picture the mess...

[SteverinoNY]

Off Topic but Dealing with Stupidity

Yesterday when I was leaving my school to come home for winter break (I live 15 minutes away), I was driving down the road by a dunkin donuts. As I pass the exit to the DD (the diagram will show this much clearer - apologies for its crudeness), some sucky coffee wench driving a new mercedes decides that she can beat me into traffic. Mind you, its snowing (we got 5 inches last night) so the roads are slick. At the last minute she decides its not worth getting the back end of her car rammed in by a 2001 Ford Taurus (my car) and stands on the brakes. Now, the roads are unplowed or unsalted, so she skids into my lane. With my quick wit and heroic reflexes, I swerve around her while standing on the brakes myself. I missed an accident by abour 3-6 inches tops. I was certainly scared shitless. I hope the stupid lady spilled her coffee all over the nice leather in her car.

* I don't disparage people who drink coffee, but this lady seemed like she was a massive bitch because of the massive hurry she seemed in (she floored it as soon as she got her change and was not planning on stopping)*

[CrazedClerk]

Haven't had many run-ins with school buses, but I have had plenty of experiences on city transit, such as:

- At least 10 near accidents in 4 years I rode the bus
- Plenty of missed stops, in several cases the bus flew right by me while I was standing AT THE FREAKIN STOP!
- Bus Drivers who drive the damn things like sports cars (this is really fun considering city transit doesn't have seat belts!)
- Seen a number of accidents involving buses, one particularly nasty one. On our freeways, there's a bus only lane marked by a giant Diamond. Apparently some vacationing couple was driving in that lane and stalled. Despite the fact it was a clear day and the roads were clear, this bus apparently didn't see the stalled car in the bus lane and rammed it hard. It killed the drivers wife and baby girl and left the driver paralyzed. He got a very LARGE chunk of change from the city for that one.

Also when I was in the U.S. this summer, I did a lot of travel on Interstates. I noticed that while most trucks had the "How's my driving?" sticker with the phone number on the back on them but I was surprised to see how many had the phone number scratched out/spray painted over/otherwise obscured. Kind of makes it hard to report these guys doesn't it?

[blas]

My dad works for a semi truck company. While he is only a sales rep and does not drive the big rigs himself, he has offered me the following advice.

Semi trucks, if they need to switch lanes, are only going to let their blinker blink so many times before they slide over. It does not matter what traffic is like or if you do not want to be behind him, you get over.

*Fair? No. If I see one trying to get in front of me, I get in the other lane or jack up the speed pronto*

Semi trucks are on a schedule, and if they have to blow a red light, they will.

*Fair? No. Illegal? Yes. Unfortunately, not enough of these morons get pulled over. Many times I have nearly been creamed by a retarded semi truck driver blowing a red light making a turn (and we all know how slow they are at that). Your best bet, if you see a light turn red and a semi truck still there, wait and make sure he does not go for it and kill you just so he doesn't lose a second of time*

I understand that they are on a schedule, and I respect their size. I respect how dangerous a trucker's life can be (with getting mugged and robbed and whatnot)...but I do not respect a trucker who makes the stereotype of a jerkoff by putting people's lives in danger just to cut a minute off his trip, who pulls out in front of oncoming traffic at 50+ mph even though he knows he does not have enough time, who wait until the last second to switch lanes and try to shove everyone over, who use their size to intimidate.........etcetc.