Old one but a good one. We're supposed to get a lot of snow this winter.
This reminded me of a story from the last big snowy winter we had a couple years ago.
I was in University, and I took the buses to and from campus. University is on a rather steep hill, and that winter, it snowed. By snowed, I mean about two feet, which is a lot for our town, especially with steep hills.
Now, the main road through campus is always full of pedestrians and buses, and they just kind of crowd together and make it work. If buses waited for pedestrians to cross, they'd never move, likewise pedestrians would never get across if they waited for the buses or other cars that strayed in there (the road was closed during the day except to buses and campus traffic, but that didn't stop some idiots from getting around the barriers), so everyone just had to share the road at once.
Now, things get very slippery in the snow (our city owns just one snowplow, since we seldom see significant amounts), and buses are heavy, so perhaps the pedestrians would use more prudence when crossing in front of the bus in those conditions. Oh wait, forgot where I was posting for a second.
Picture this: the bus sliding downhill. We aren't even facing the direction we're moving -- the front left corner of the bus is pointing downhill and the rear right corner of the bus is point uphill. So we're sliding down at an angle, pedestrians are walking out right in front of the bus, and the driver isn't even batting an eye! In fact, I seemed to be the only one who found it terrifying. Really, if one of those people suddenly slipped on the icy road surface, there would have been no way to stop the bus in time!
(I've since come to the conclusion that bus drivers here are either very brave or batshit insane in the snow, 'cause they just seem to plow right along like the snow and ice weren't even there.)
This reminded me of a story from the last big snowy winter we had a couple years ago.I was in University, and I took the buses to and from campus. University is on a rather steep hill, and that winter, it snowed. By snowed, I mean about two feet, which is a lot for our town, especially with steep hills.
Now, the main road through campus is always full of pedestrians and buses, and they just kind of crowd together and make it work. If buses waited for pedestrians to cross, they'd never move, likewise pedestrians would never get across if they waited for the buses or other cars that strayed in there (the road was closed during the day except to buses and campus traffic, but that didn't stop some idiots from getting around the barriers), so everyone just had to share the road at once.
Now, things get very slippery in the snow (our city owns just one snowplow, since we seldom see significant amounts), and buses are heavy, so perhaps the pedestrians would use more prudence when crossing in front of the bus in those conditions. Oh wait, forgot where I was posting for a second.
Picture this: the bus sliding downhill. We aren't even facing the direction we're moving -- the front left corner of the bus is pointing downhill and the rear right corner of the bus is point uphill. So we're sliding down at an angle, pedestrians are walking out right in front of the bus, and the driver isn't even batting an eye! In fact, I seemed to be the only one who found it terrifying. Really, if one of those people suddenly slipped on the icy road surface, there would have been no way to stop the bus in time!
(I've since come to the conclusion that bus drivers here are either very brave or batshit insane in the snow, 'cause they just seem to plow right along like the snow and ice weren't even there.)

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