Ego Trip

Day off yesterday and today but I had a little boost to the ego yesterday. On Saturday I took some photos of a Taxi that had been hit by a tree and I sent a couple of them to the local paper, the Herald Express, which printed them, with my name on the photo.

They haven't got round to hiring me as staff photographer yet but I am expecting an e mail any day now.

In the mean while, back to work tomorrow on the new summer timetables, to see what horrors await.

The Grim Reaper.

If you break down in your car the chances are some break down truck will turn up that will have seen better days. Oil, grease, mud and dents will be it's predominant features.

Break down in a bus and this masterpiece will turn up and tow you away. All most makes breaking down worth it.

Tree hits taxi

We have had some great weather so far this year but the last few days it has been crap. Friday night was the worst so far with strong winds and heavy rain all night long. Which was a shame as there was a bus rally at Oldway Mansion on Saturday. Lots of old, lovingly restored buses were taking part and some were even taking passengers on trips round the Bay. I was working and missed it. After lunch I was walking round to the bus stop on Cary Parade in Torquay to start my second half when I heard a loud crack. Across the road there is a line of trees and a branch of one of the trees had snapped off and hit a taxi parked on the rank. The driver was sitting in the cab at the time and he was quite lucky the branch didn't go through his windscreen.

Today, Monday is a Bank Holiday and when we have a Bank Holiday on the Monday, which usually happens we do the same duty on the Monday we did on the Sunday and both days were, for me anyway, early starts and long duties. It is also school holidays so it has been two hard days. Not much interesting happening except for the French Traders coming over from France and setting their stalls up on the road the goes to Paignton. The Council invited them, said something about cultural exchange. What it did do was cause a lot of drivers to slow down as they drove past and say, "Oh look. French Traders." So for 7 hours getting in and out of Torquay was slow going. Some thing else to blame on the Common Market; or maybe on the council for inviting them in the first place. They have been before and we always have the same problem.

An other little problem we have had this weekend has been the failure of the traffic lights at Goodrington. Actually it hasn't been a problem for us as the lights are at a "T" junction and we are going straight on. When the lights fail at a junction the priority works as if there weren't any lights there which means we just keep going and the poor cars coming out of the side road have to give way to us. Anyway one time when I got there and some poor sod had been working on the lights for 3 hours. As I approached he pressed a switch and the lights came on, showing red. Then they changed normally, red and amber and then green. The traffic light man punched the air with joy, short lived as all the lights went out 2 seconds later. Last I saw of him as I drove away he was hitting the control box with a large sledgehammer. Must have been the right tactic as the lights worked OK all day today

Must Get In Front of the Bus ( A Non Olympic Sport)

This is the bus after the crash. Actually to call it a crash is a bit of an exaggeration, like saying Tony Blair was a good Prime Minister. More of a slight scratch. I have circled the damage in yellow so you can see it. There is slightly more damage to the car, the scratch is at least 6 inches long. As is apparent from the photo I was in the 2nd lane of 3 when a competitor on the famous sport of , 'I must get in front of the bus even if I get my wing ripped of doing it', came from the first lane and tried to overtake me. What am I saying, he did over take me but he turned his wheel just a second too soon and even though I turned slightly away from him, he still hit me. Now I should point out that more people take part in the above sport than play the National Lottery. Bit of a surprise this as the prize for winning the lottery could be more than a million pounds and the prize for winning the afore mentioned sport is you get home one second sooner. What are you going to do with that second, rewrite War & Peace?

Making contact on the other hand means you spend 5 minutes at the road side swapping details, an hour filling in the insurance forms and 3 days waiting for your car to come back from the repair shop where some 17 year old apprentice mechanic who has been banned from driving for 10 years has been using it for a runabout on a pub crawl in Exeter and showing his mates how to do handbrake turns on gravel farm tracks. (Hint; Look under the back seat for any used condoms before your wife finds them). Oh yes, next year's insurance premium might not quiet be double; if you're lucky.


But some drivers like the adrenaline rush and think it's worth the risk

Paignton Bus Station and the Brixham Park & Ride.

Once again Paignton Bus Station was the scene of carnage and disaster as a reversing bus hit a fuel tanker. As you can see the damage to the bus was actually slight and there appeared to be no damage done to the tanker. This is the usual scale when these collisions occur as the bus is usually going at 2 mph, I speak from experience here. But they do seem to be happening more often. The number and size of buses using the station has increased in recent years and when several buses arrive at more or less the same time they are parked fairly close together with little room to swing the back of the bus round. Add some thing like the fuel tanker and the margin for error becomes small to the point of not if but when. There are plans I believe to pull the station down and rebuild it but I heard mention of such plans way back in the dim and distant past of the last century when I first stated working for the company.

Note: I should point out this is the first time anyone has actually hit a fuel tanker and I hear there are plans to have a controller directing buses when ever there is a fuel tanker in the bus station. Usually we just hit the garage wall.

The other excitement of the day was the opening of the Brixham Park & Ride. This usually only operates in July and August but the council decided to open it for this week which is School holiday week and Monday is a bank holiday as well. We have to turn right into the car park and again a right turn is need to get out of the car park. The first year we managed without the assistance of traffic lights but last year a full set of traffic lights were erected so we and the car drivers could get out of the car park without resorting to the closing of eyes and going method of crossing a busy main road. (Copied from cats the world over). Now we, car drivers and cats can get out in safety. All winter the lights have been covered up with plastic sheeting. This morning at 10:00, an hour and a half after the car park opened the council workers arrived with a crane big enough to use to build a set of pyramids, loads of cones, barriers and a set of Stop/Go boards to remove the sheeting. The must have been on an hourly rate because it took them for ever to get the sheeting down and the traffic queues were half a mile back in both directions. I just hope it was worth it because the most cars I saw using the car park as I went past were 3, and one of those belonged to the attendant.

An other thing that bothers me is on the notice in the sign-on room at work it has the fares and includes the following couple of items; Dog return 75p Dog single 50p. Are we expecting hoards of people to arrive at the Park & Ride with their dog and buy a single ticket for the much loved family pet and expect it to walk back to the car park on it's own? Good trick if you can pull it off. Or worse still, tie the stupid mute to a lamp post and get on the next bus and bugger off as fast as possible before anyone notices.