A Footnote and a Warning

Yesterday I told a little story about how a driver seeing a number 12 in front of him picking up at a stop end up causing two people to end up waiting almost 45 mins for a bus that runs every 15 mins. Here is a footnote to that story. Like most large depots we have 2 or 3 spare drivers on duty during the working day. They are there in case a driver goes sick while on duty or if a driver rings in sick before starting duty. They get a Running Board thrust in to their hands and told to hit the road. Even if no one goes sick they have their uses. If a bus breaks down, God forbid, they can take a spare bus out of the garage to replace the broken down bus so the service isn't held up too much. If they aren't needed then they sit around for eight and a half doing nothing except get paid. Nice if you like that sort of thing but I find sitting round doing nothing all day just a tiny bit boring. With this in mind some one at management level decided that the spare drives should do some thing useful, like running extra buses between Torquay and Paignton.

This afternoon as I left Paignton Bus Station I noticed that there was a 12 in front of me and had no idea that it was one of these extra buses. I just decided that he was running late. As we went through the lights at Manor Road the bus in front indicated that it was stopping at the next stop so I pulled out to past so I could get to the next stop and help the driver out. As I drew level doing 25 mph a woman appeared from in front of the other bus waving franticly. There was nothing I could do but stop in the middle of the road and pick her up. The other bus drove away as soon as she boarded my bus leaving me in the middle of the road with no visible reason for being there with a police car approaching from the opposite direction and 20 cars behind playing Beethoven's 5th symphony on their car horns. "What," I enquired in the most polite voice I have ever used, "Was wrong with that bus?" Dogs 200 yards away put their paws over their ears, milk in fridges in the whole of Preston went sour and dolphins that had been swimming happily in the Bay headed for the South of France. "It's only going to the Harbour, it's no use to me I want to go a bit further."

I looked around for the hole, you know the one that swallows people but is never there when you need it. Well it wasn't there so I only had one option, to sell ticket and GO. " And where would you to got to my lovely?"
"Fleet Walk Please. Return."