The 12 Route

This is the 12 route where I spent a lot of my time. I am so used to it, having driven up and down it for 8 years that I forget that one or two people out there might not have the slightest idea where it goes. One day I will get round to doing a more detailed map and description together with photos.

A couple got on the bus in Brixham to day to go to Torquay. (Takes 40 mins)They were from up north (1) and were down for a few days visiting friends. When we got to Torquay the lady remarked how quiet it was. I explained that most people had spent too much on their Christmas Cards, sorry credit cards, the weather had been bad, lots of rain and wind and half the hotels were closed as the owners had gone to Barbados for two months and anyway seaside towns in January usually were quiet places.

"No, no." She said, "Not the town, the buses. Ours up in Manchester are so noisy you have to shout to be heard. These are so quiet."

I should point out that there are a lot of bus companies in Manchester and the lady did not specify which company she was referring to.

But I am glad she liked our buses.

Note (1) Up North; any where north of and including Exeter.

Car phone lay-bye and sweets

This car is parked in a bus stop. The thick yellow line on the left and the broken yellow lines on the right mark the extent of the bus stop. Under the bus I am on are the words BUS STOP in big yellow letters. As the car got there well before me the driver could not have failed to notice said words. (At least I hope he couldn't have failed to notice them). It used to be illegal to park a car on a bus stop even to do what he is doing which is using a mobile phone. However it isn't illegal any more as all bus stops are now car phone answering bays. It is just that the government haven't yet got round to painting that information on the bus stops up and down the country. Until they do maybe it still is illegal to stop in a bus stop to answer your phone. If you are reading this Tony, could you let me know. And could you let this car driver know as well.

The other little problem I had to day was due to my disregarding something my mother told me many years ago. A passenger got on the bus and as an extra reward for being such a good bus driver she gave me a packet of Werthers Original Toffees. Only 6 in the packet but then I ain't that good a bus driver (see post re bus shelter). But not some thing that usually I indulge in these days (on a diet). Later on in the day, whilst stuck in traffic up at South Devon College I decided to cheer myself up and treat myself to one of these little delights. Half way through I noticed that instead of being totally chewy, there was a distinct crunchy bit in there as well. Now if I had been eating a Lion Bar I wouldn't have worried, they are expected to crunch, Werthers Original aren't. So I discarded the remains of the toffee and explored to contents of my mouth with my tongue, paying close regard to the 29 no longer completely white bits of enamel that have been part of me for so long now. Well, there are only 28 and a half bits of not quite white enamel now. A filling that I have been carrying round with me since 1958 plus the side wall of a tooth I have had for even longer are now lying in the middle of Long Road by the traffic lights fixed to a half chewed piece of Werthers Original. There is no reward offered if you find the filling, I wasn't particularly fond of it, it just came in use now and then when ever I wanted to chew some thing. Now, too late I remember my mother saying something about sweets and strangers.

Running Dead

Running Dead isn't some macabre ritual that bus drivers go through in some secret rite of passage only known to bus drivers. It means driving out of service, we don't stop and pick up passengers as all we are doing is returning the bus back to the depot at the end of a shift. It mostly happens around 6 pm when about half the buses come of the road for the reduced service we provide in the evening. So a few evenings ago I ended up in Brixham and the Running Board said Dead to Depot. Off I went. Usually I go over the Ring Road but there are road works on the ring road so I went through Paignton.

There is a slight problem going this way. Between Brixham and Paignton there are only two places where a car can overtake the bus. The first is on a 300 yard stretch of two lane, duel carriageway road between the bottom of Cherry Brook Rd and Waterside Holiday Park. This section used to be a 40 mph speed limit road but the council made the left lane into a bus lane and reduced the speed limit to 30. This is about two miles from the centre of Brixham and a pick up truck had been following me all the way from Brixham, and to use an American expression, tailgating me. When I got to the duel carriageway I continued in the outside lane and the pick up could not overtake me. Then the road became one lane again for an other mile before getting to the lights at Penwill Way, which were on red. There are two lanes there and I used the left lane.

The pick up truck stopped next to me in the right hand lane and got out of his truck and started shouting at me for holding him up. I pointed out that I had been driving at the speed limit all the way from Brixham so how could I have been holding him up? He screamed that I should have used the bus lane. I tried to explain but the lights had now changed so I drove on. By the time he got back in to his truck his window of opportunity for overtaking had gone and he was stuck behind me once again. The next place he could get past me was now an other 4 miles down the road. He should have stayed in his truck.

What he did not know was that dead bus are not allowed to use bus lanes. They are for local buses in service only. Sorry about that, pick up truck driver.

An Other Rest day

When I got up this morning it was a toss up between putting the shelves up in the back room, which I promished to do some time last year (actually 2005 now) and going to watch Torquay Athletic Under nines play rugby. The team are sponsered by Stagecoach Devon and the Belgrave Hotel and a fellow driver helps with the coaching.

As you can see the shelves still aren't up but it was a good game, evenly matched with Torquay winning by a couple of tries. The lad with the ball went all the way down the pitch to score and the sun shone, for the first time in two weeks. A good morning out.

Reflective Jackets

We have these HiVis jackets at work. All to do with Health & Safety. The reflective stripes certainly show up.

We had an other fairly quiet day to day, the weather hasn't been at it's best so far this year, not just in Torquay but the whole of the UK has had 'Wet and Windy' stuck on the weather forecaster's maps an awful lot recently.

Then we had an accident involving a motor bike and a car which brought traffic heading from Torquay to Brixham to a very slow crawl.One of the problems with the Bay is the main road tends to be to only way and if it is blocked traffic stops.It was late on in the afternoon when most people had given up and gone home so not too many people were held up.

To those who were, "Sorry."