What I Did Today

I was covering Duty 3613, usually a nice duty. It starts well after morning rush hour and the children going to school. Even the shoppers have got to the shops and haven't started to go home again and it tends to be fairly quiet. One little problem, which was to be expected, was all the buses were running a few minutes late. The reason, apart from the road works, was the new fares and the changes that had been made to some of our tickets. Notices were put on all the buses on Saturday evening at 10:30 so no one could say they weren't warned that there would be changes on Sunday. Two of the tickets that went were the Torquay and Paignton weekly megariders. For £11.00 you could ride round either Torquay or Paignton and Brixham for a week. As many bus rides as you could manage. Problem was too many people were using the Paignton megarider to travel to Torquay which wasn't allowed. And is stealing. If the driver was in a rush they might get away with this. Well from yesterday they can ride around the whole of Torbay and all the way to Newton for £16.00. Whether they want to or not. So today hundreds if not thousands of passengers were getting on their bus with £11.00 to buy their weekly ticket only to be told by the poor sod of a driver that they were £5.00 short and why didn't they get on a bus at 10:30 Saturday evening and read the notice. All the fares had gone up and people who tended the correct fare (nice people) were being asked for more money. Those who paid with a note were querying their change. All takes time.

Then I got to Newton, regular readers will know there are road works in Newton. Anyone who has approached the temporary traffic lights at road works will be familiar with the red notice just before the lights which instructs them to, "Wait here when Red Light Shows." One set of lights has a 30 foot gap between the notice and the lights. Here is a question. If you go past the notice and the lights are on green but they change to red before you reach the lights, do you stop at the lights?" That question should be asked in the Highway Code part of the Driving Test. There would only be half the cars, and two buses less, on the road today if it were. The answer by the way is NO!

I will repeat that in case you missed it the first time NO! NO! NO! Especially if the lights in question are on a bend and the road works are taking up so much of the road that the X64, the 30 foot long, X64 bound for Exeter, that you are driving now blocks the road to everything but a motor bike and possibly a mini, a small mini at that. I ended up having to reverse 35 feet in a very crowded street so the driver of the X64 could get out. The lights had changed twice by the time the road was clear. Then what happened. The 30 foot long, 85A heading for Exeter went past the red notice on green, the lights changed and what did the driver do. Guessed it in one; He stopped. Maybe Exeter is too posh for roadworks.

On my way out of Newton a warning buzzer went of. Low water. Stop. Phone control. They told me they would get someone out to me as soon as possible. "Tell them not to hurry." I joked. I didn't know there had been other break downs else where. An hour later a fitter turned up and got me going again.

Then there was a serious accident in the centre of Torquay which slowed every one down almost to the point of stop. But I was running so late I was back on time and heading for Paignton and Brixham and crowds of people at every bus stop who had given up caring about the fare increase and wanted to know where all the buses were. An other eventful day. I got home 25 minutes late, plenty of empathy with all the passengers.