On Jul 30, 11:27�am, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 11:05:15 on Wed,
30 Jul 2008, John Rowland
remarked:

Just have some bleeper which gets more and more urgent and if the
computer thinks the bus is going to strike the bridge then it slams
on the breaks. The technology exists to do it.

"just" Hmm... Given that many bridges have very little clearance under
them, how will this device tell from sufficiently far away whether the
bridge is six inches too low, or six inches higher than required?

Because it has a GPS and a gazetteer of low bridges?

Why over-complicate it? Just have a GPS that shows routes *without* low
bridges, that are recommended for use by buses. Then you can avoid other
nasties as well.

And otherwise it's not failsafe (maybe there's a low bridge somewhere
that didn't make it into the gazetteer).
--
Roland Perry

I know this sentiment has been expressed more eloquently before, but
why is it so impossible for these drivers just to do what they are
paid to do, i.e. drive a bus on the correct route without either
damaging it or injuring its passengers?

All these electronic devices - even the intrusive ones "announcing"
each and every stop. Why are they necessary? On the rare occasion a
passenger need to be told of a particular alighting point, why can't
they tell the driver and he then announces it over the NEVER-USED P.A.
system? I have even travelled on a bus several minutes off route,
when a bus was terminated short of his destination - even then he
failed to use the P.A. system, and did not even check to see whether
anyone (me) was still on the top deck!

I travelled on a route 28 earlier this week, where the volume of the
automatic announcement was so loud it gave me earache. Yesterday, I
travelled on one where the system had either been vandalised or broken
down - the L.C.D. screen showed the same stop for the entire journey -
pure silent bliss!

Marc.