City Bus Driver

Sometimes the most important person on a bus isn't the person driving it. Sometimes it's the stranger standing outside who decides they aren't going anywhere. Kymberlee Daley There are plenty of stories about buses that go wrong. Drivers being assaulted. Passengers behaving badly. Traffic chaos. Arguments. Delays. The occasional incident that becomes tomorrow's headline and yesterday's social-media argument. And then, every so often, something happens that reminds you that buses aren't just machines carrying people around a city. They're places where strangers cross paths. And sometimes, when something goes badly wrong, one of those strangers does something extraordinary. This is one of those stories. I don't want to spend too much time on the incident itself. The details are already out there, and they make uncomfortable reading. A bus driver was attacked. A situation developed rapidly. The driver eventually managed to escape from the vehicle, while the...

Sometimes being a good bus driver isn't about what you do. It's about noticing what everyone else missed. A passenger says they're fine. Your instincts aren't quite convinced. So what do you do when something feels wrong, but isn't quite wrong enough to intervene? Sometimes nothing obvious has happened, but something doesn’t quite add up. Recognising the signs and simply asking, “Are you okay?” can be the most important action of all. There are plenty of things you expect to deal with on a bus. Late runners. People who wave at you from half a mile away. Someone insisting they definitely pressed the bell (they didn't). And, of course, the daily debate over whether the empty seat next to someone is actually occupied by an invisible friend. Then there are the moments that aren't in the timetable. Recently, I was doing a driver change when I noticed a bloke sitting at the back of the lower deck chatting away to a lone female passenger. He appeared to be under th...