Shout out to the other poor folks schlepping around on buses; I hop on a bus that travels through a severely congested street. Every second it’s not moving, no one else is, so myself and a handful of others will usually board early if it’s a bus-and-a-half lengths. Away. Usually. Sometimes, the driver will not open. If I try to gesture, “hey is this cool?” I’ll get zero reaction eiither way.
Am I actually getting endangering this dude’s job at the benefit of everyone else, or is this well within the purview of the driver, just like their choice to skip over a crowded stop or have people board from the exit?
PS share your weird bus stories
Edit: y’all I have to update this to avoid repeating myself, but there’s like 2-10 regular riders and it’s normal that someone steps forwards against traffic at a red light and then the door opens and we all board.
Whenever I’m there alone, I don’t have the nerve to step out myself, hence the fruitless gesturing. When I’m with everyone else it’s business as usual to board 20m away from the stop. This is a regular occurrence, has been for a year or two, and seemed funny to me as it’s the first time in a zillion years to encounter this.
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I only board when the door opens, whether the bus is at a bus stop or stuck in a traffic a few meter before the stop.
Maybe you better moving to developing countries where the bus doors always open and it’s ok to jump while the bus still moving
What’s the benefit of boarding early? Still stuck at the light either way and the driver is going to stop at the stop for any latecomers.
New bus system as of 1 October. Instead of a direct bus to the supermarket, I have to take the bus one stop and change to a really small “bus” (like a big car – about 8 seats). It is quite intimate. The “new” bus encourages the obasan and ojisan to ask to get off at very specific points. This always happened a bit, but now the driver just says “where do you want to be dropped”. More than one has commented on it being “like a taxi”. No wonder its timekeeping is not great.
Conversely, the driver can ask “is everyone going to <name of supermarket>?” and if everyone says “yes” we can breeze past empty bus stops and make great time.
On the way back, I decided I’d walk instead of changing for one stop. The bus drives up to me as I’m walking and the driver checks to see if I was OK and didn’t need to catch a ride (to be fair, I am sometimes the only passenger – and on this occasion he had no-one else in the bus, I am probably the only person either between 18 and 60 or who is not from the island that ever rides the bus, so they know me).
The service is not particularly regular (some hours have a bus, others don’t) but when it runs, it is pretty flexible.
I left my hat on the bus last week. The driver had it ready for me the next day.
Bus drivers have a pretty strict set of rules like stopping only at designated bus stops.
Yes, in places like India, the Philippines, or Yemen, where you can yell at a driver, and they will stop for you, but I can assure you that bys accidents are more frequent in those places.
I thought buses has rules like trains… I heard a lot of stories when ppl late for 1 sec and the driver just close the door and ignore.