An ode (of sorts) to bus drivers
Photo by Flickr user Rubin 110
The righteous folk over at People Who Deserve It have unearthed their screed against what they dub Aggressively Anal Bus Driver. A choice cut of meat:
How about cutting the peeps a little slack Aggressively Anal Bus Driver? Stop yelling at people for paying in quarters, or coming near the yellow line, or for not being able to move any further into the armpit of the diabetic Hare Krishna. How about you just suffer in silence like the rest of us? Sound good?
Muni Diaries loves a diligent Muni driver as much as the next person. But we all know that some people in all walks of life end up taking their jobs a little too literally, and wind up coming across as just this type of jackass.
That said, isn’t it about time we all restore honor and dignity into the system with a “Thank you” when we deboard? Just sayin’.
This morning my 71L driver wouldn’t let someone on who had a paper cup of coffee. It was awesome.
Wait, what is wrong with paying with quarters?
Why should we “thank” the driver? He’s part of a terrible transit system. Maybe we should thank him/her for not getting into an accident while we were on the bus. “Thank you, driver”, you got me from point A to point B alive!
or you could just stop riding Muni?
I have mostly. But there are times when I HAVE to ride because they are no other options. I never ride downtown for instance. I ride BART there, which helps me avoid the dastardly fare inspectors and not support MUNI.
Jeff, I should also say that I’m disabled and don’t have many alternatives to get around the city. There are quite a few of us who need some dependable, affordable, safe, and clean transit system. And I would also say that MUNI makes our lives quite difficult.
You’re disabled and MUNI makes your life difficult? Wait a minute — MUNI is everything they say it is in these pages, but let’s at least give them the benefit for having provided kneeling busses, busses with wheel-chair lifts, and busses where half the seats are restricted for disabled seating only, which seems a bit much. Face it: if it weren’t for the many accommodations that MUNI has afforded the disabled riders, they’d be left sitting at home staring out the window finding fault with the people who walk past their gardens.
And yes, I have a disabled card, and no, I won’t play “I’m more disabled than you.” Transit in any form in this city is a headache. In any form. Pity the drivers, pity the riders.
frankly I would be happy to have a driver that is paying attention to any part of his actual job. for the most part on the 22 line they seem more concerned with talking to their relatives, stopping the bus in the middle of the road to get a drink at Farley’s, playing cards at the end the line and doing anything that is not related to their actual job of driving the bus without hitting anyone and actually stopping when people ring the bell.