A week or so ago I mentioned that there was the Devon General Bus Rally at Oldway Mansion on Sunday the 27th May. Don't worry, it's still on if you were planning on going. I was planning on going, Sunday the 27th is one of my few days off. Well in the same article I mentioned, just in passing that Sunday 27th was the start of the Summer season down here in Beautiful Devon. Big time table changes, we get more time on several of the bus routes to help us cope with the extra passengers, traffic and all those questions from bewildered passengers. The meal breaks don't get longer to help us get over all of the above (hint, hint, head office). With these changes come new rotas and duties. The new rotas were up on the wall yesterday and my days of have been changed and on the day of the rally I will be working from 07:58 to 16:57. The rally ends at 17:00 so I have 3 minutes to get from the depot in Regent Close to Oldway. Anyone got a helicopter I can borrow?
Also going back to speaking too soon I mentioned a RTC I had witnessed while waiting to take over a bus by the depot. Today I received a nice little letter from Devon and Cornwall Constabulary asking me to fill in a Witness Statement. All 6 pages. It took me ages, probably an hour to fill in. Some policeman has now got to transfer all the detail to some other form and send it in quadruple to the Home Office and god knows where else or he will get a nasty letter from head office for not filling in Form reference number Q/3478SFE/Uk/fillthisin/orgetthesack. I am not surprised that people can be a little reluctant to volunteer their names and address if the see an RTC. I tend to though, some years ago I was involve in a slight incident and a person on the bus wouldn’t give name and address,” Don’t want to get involved.” Do they thing the Mafia are going to come round and knee cap him and burn his house down or some thing. Any way I ended up in court and because I didn’t have a witness it cost me £275 in fines and costs when I was completely innocent of any offence. The other person’s witness lied through his back, and front teeth when he wasn’t even there. Long time ago now and all forgotten.
Yesterday I started at 09:33 on the Harbour side and by 09:50 I had had two small incidents that always leave me slightly annoyed. The first was a gentleman who got on and asked for a ticket to the train station and even gave me the right money, £1.35. About 15 other passengers also boarded. So I promptly forgot about the person going to the station until I got to Livermead, about a mile past the station when this anxious voiced asked me if I would tell him when we got to the train station. Why didn’t he do that when he got on? A mile down the road I went speeding past the bus stop at Christchurch when a voice at my shoulder informed me that, “I wanted that stop.” Some one had been standing just behind me in the aisle and had expected me to have noticed him. Sorry mate, too busy looking at the road ahead. I resisted the temptation to inform him that the bus stop belonged to the council and he couldn’t have it. Instead I told him I hadn’t heard the bell and dropped him of at the next stop.
Things like this annoy me because both those persons are going to go away with the impression that bus drivers deliberately drive past their stops with out stopping because we are rude, ignorant, mad, evil, sadistic, uncaring bastards who don’t give a damn. Which as you know couldn’t be further from the truth.
Cup Final Day My prediction: Manchester United 3 Chelsea 1 Wembley Stadium Great!
3 comments:
It would be so much easier on passengers if the driver didn't sit with his back to them. It is also incredibly rude the way drivers refuse to make eye contact when passengers are talking to them. If drivers would stop fiddling with their wheel thing and looking out the windows they could do a much better job of answering questions like, "How long is it until my stop?"
You jinxed the football result! Boy do I hate Chelsea.....
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