Not For the Faint Hearted! (Not if you like gulls anyway)

Thursday evening I hit a seagull. No; I didn't walk up to it, grab it and hit it around the head a few times, I hit it with the bus.

It happened like this; I was on my last trip, all I had to do was go to Brixham as a 12A and the back to the depot dead and home for a well earned can of beer. As you drive down Long Road towards the college there is a slight bend in the road, going round the bend I notice a flock of about 50 gulls in the middle of the road. Gulls usually move out of the way but to make sure I gave a quick blast on the horn and all but one flew away. This one mean looking hombre was standing there, staring down the big red, blue white and orange monster heading towards him and was not going to move. The gull had turned into a real hard chicken (well, he was playing chicken with the bus), not a good idea when the bus weighs 11.5 tonnes and is heading towards you at 30 mph. When I was about 10 feet away this idea also penetrated the gull's brain and brain cell 1, brain cell 2 and brain cell 3 all suggested that flying would be a good career move on the part of this gull turned chicken. But chickens can't fly very far, not in quarter of a second anyway. There was a solid thump at the front of the bus followed by a couple of secondary bangs of a lesser nature from the underside of the bus. Oh dear.

Anyway, I went down to the college and round the roundabout and stopped at the stop. No one go on or off. The college is closed for the summer and there are only admin staff and cleaners there at the moment. On the way back up Long Road I was expecting to find the remains of the gull, or worse an injured gull. I was, if the gull was badly injured, prepared to steer the bus in such a way as to end any suffering. I was therefore very pleased when I got back to the site of the impact to find the road was clear, well there were lots of gulls sat at the side of the road staring at me as I drove past. Bit like in a scene from a Hitchcock film. Some how it would seem the gull had made it. Just to make sure, when I got to Brixham I did have a look under the bus just to be sure it wasn't wedged some where, in a wheel arch or some place similar.

Friday morning, again driving a 12A I went down to the college. As I drove down Long Road I thought about the gull. How tough it must have been to get hit by a bus and not loose all. It was a big disappointment when I when round the roundabout at the bottom of Long Road and saw there in the roadway the remains, the very flat and battered remains of the gull. Poor sod.