London Banter - Boris's bus related jinxes continue

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Boris's bus related jinxes continue

On 02/10/2019 21:10, Recliner wrote:
MissRiaElaine wrote:
On 02/10/2019 15:19, Richard wrote:

I don't think the articulated buses were monstrosities either, in my
opinion they were the most user-friendly buses we've ever had. That
the mayor would have started a campaign of lies about them won't be a
surprise to anyone now.

We still have bendy buses up here, and long may they remain, they do the
job.

My comment on the PC brigade was valid. I never said Routemasters had to
be the only buses in service. My brother is disabled and uses a
wheelchair, I know all about the requirement for disabled access.

Apart from that, the old buses needed conductors, while modern buses are
OPO. That was the main factor in the initial switch from the popular RMs.

Thereby making even more people redundant. And reducing safety. Buses
with conductors never suffered the same level of antisocial behaviour as
they do now, with only one person (the driver) on board.

Not long after I started work driving, probably around 1999 or
thereabouts, one of my colleagues on a late night service reached the
point where he was due to come out of service for the night. This was
some way short of the normal terminus, and was so that the bus didn't
have too long a journey back to the garage. It was well after midnight
and was rarely busy.

When he got to this point, there were still three males on board. He
told them they would have to get off, as he was now out of service. The
destination was, of course, clearly shown on the front and side blinds
when they boarded, but they were very loud and abusive and were having
none of it.

"We want to go to Chelmsley Wood" they kept saying. This, for those who
don't know the Birmingham area, is an area to the east of the city, not
far from the airport and about another three miles or so further on from
where this particular bus terminated for the night.

The driver politely explained that he was now out of service and could
not take them any further. After several more abusive (on their part)
exchanges, they forced their way into the cab, dragged the driver out,
and gave him such a severe beating that he suffered three broken ribs
and was unable to return to work for several months. In fact I believe
he never did return to bus driving.

This is what happens when you get rid of conductors. Two people on the
bus may or may not have been a deterrent to these particular yobs, but
they would deter many others.

--
Ria in Aberdeen

[Send address is invalid, use sipsoup at gmail dot com to reply direct]

Boris's bus related jinxes continue

MissRiaElaine wrote:
On 02/10/2019 21:10, Recliner wrote:
MissRiaElaine wrote:
On 02/10/2019 15:19, Richard wrote:

I don't think the articulated buses were monstrosities either, in my
opinion they were the most user-friendly buses we've ever had. That
the mayor would have started a campaign of lies about them won't be a
surprise to anyone now.

We still have bendy buses up here, and long may they remain, they do the
job.

My comment on the PC brigade was valid. I never said Routemasters had to
be the only buses in service. My brother is disabled and uses a
wheelchair, I know all about the requirement for disabled access.

Apart from that, the old buses needed conductors, while modern buses are
OPO. That was the main factor in the initial switch from the popular RMs.

Thereby making even more people redundant.

Britain isn't short of minimum wage jobs. It's short of the people to do
them. There would be even fewer buses still running if they all had to
carry conductors.

And reducing safety. Buses
with conductors never suffered the same level of antisocial behaviour as
they do now, with only one person (the driver) on board.

Modern buses have extensive, high res CCTV coverage covering the whole bus
interior. The yobs will certainly be caught on camera, and the drivers can
summon urgent assistance. My local buses show the CCTV images in a constant
cycle, so you're reminded of how your image is being recorded.

Not long after I started work driving, probably around 1999 or
thereabouts, one of my colleagues on a late night service reached the
point where he was due to come out of service for the night. This was
some way short of the normal terminus, and was so that the bus didn't
have too long a journey back to the garage. It was well after midnight
and was rarely busy.

When he got to this point, there were still three males on board. He
told them they would have to get off, as he was now out of service. The
destination was, of course, clearly shown on the front and side blinds
when they boarded, but they were very loud and abusive and were having
none of it.

"We want to go to Chelmsley Wood" they kept saying. This, for those who
don't know the Birmingham area, is an area to the east of the city, not
far from the airport and about another three miles or so further on from
where this particular bus terminated for the night.

The driver politely explained that he was now out of service and could
not take them any further. After several more abusive (on their part)
exchanges, they forced their way into the cab, dragged the driver out,
and gave him such a severe beating that he suffered three broken ribs
and was unable to return to work for several months. In fact I believe
he never did return to bus driving.

This is what happens when you get rid of conductors. Two people on the
bus may or may not have been a deterrent to these particular yobs, but
they would deter many others.

The drivers now have a secure cab door for protection against aggressive
passengers, which is more than conductors ever had. I suspect that there
are far fewer staff injuries now than when there were vulnerable conductors
trying to collect cash fares. And, of course, few cash fares are now
collected (none in London), so there's little or nothing to rob.

Boris's bus related jinxes continue

On Tue, Oct 01, 2019 at 10:05:41AM -0000, Recliner wrote:
David Cantrell wrote:
I don't get this antipathy to the Boris buses. I'm a passenger,
frequently. They do their job well, combining the benefits of a normal
double decker with the one benefit of the bendy monstrosities - quick
boarding - without the humungous downsides of the bendies taking up too
much road space and blocking junctions.
They're very heavy, which limits their capacity as does the rear platform
and second staircase

The second staircase helps make boarding quicker. It's a reasonable
trade-off IMO.

like the bendies they have double the fare evasion of normal buses

Again, a trade-off against quicker boarding.

They acquired their 'Roastmaster' nickname because their
air-cooling didn't work and they lacked ventilation, which had to be
retro-fitted.

Not a problem that I ever noticed.

--
David Cantrell | Cake Smuggler Extraordinaire

Are you feeling bored? depressed? slowed down? Evil Scientists may
be manipulating the speed of light in your vicinity. Buy our patented
instructional video to find out how, and maybe YOU can stop THEM

Boris's bus related jinxes continue

On Wed, Oct 02, 2019 at 05:35:29PM +0100, MissRiaElaine wrote:
On 02/10/2019 15:19, Richard wrote:
I don't think the articulated buses were monstrosities either, in my
opinion they were the most user-friendly buses we've ever had. That
the mayor would have started a campaign of lies about them won't be a
surprise to anyone now.
We still have bendy buses up here, and long may they remain, they do the
job.

I'm sure that they're fine in places that don't have much traffic or
so many buses. My complaints about them in London were that they were so
long that they couldn't cross junctions in one go and so blocked the
flow of traffic, including most importantly the flow of other buses;
that they replaced Routemasters on a passenger-per-passenger basis and
so because the new buses individually held more people the buses ran
less frequently; and that a smaller proportion of passengers had seats.

Their replacements solve every one of those problems.

--
David Cantrell | semi-evolved ape-thing

Boris's bus related jinxes continue

David Cantrell wrote:
On Tue, Oct 01, 2019 at 10:05:41AM -0000, Recliner wrote:
David Cantrell wrote:
I don't get this antipathy to the Boris buses. I'm a passenger,
frequently. They do their job well, combining the benefits of a normal
double decker with the one benefit of the bendy monstrosities - quick
boarding - without the humungous downsides of the bendies taking up too
much road space and blocking junctions.
They're very heavy, which limits their capacity as does the rear platform
and second staircase

The second staircase helps make boarding quicker. It's a reasonable
trade-off IMO.

Not for long. The proposal is to only allow boarding by the front door. So
the rear staircase will be for exit-only, which makes it an expensive waste
of space.

like the bendies they have double the fare evasion of normal buses

Again, a trade-off against quicker boarding.

An unacceptable one for TfL.

Boris's bus related jinxes continue

On 03/10/2019 00:45, Recliner wrote:

Modern buses have extensive, high res CCTV coverage covering the whole bus
interior. The yobs will certainly be caught on camera, and the drivers can
summon urgent assistance. My local buses show the CCTV images in a constant
cycle, so you're reminded of how your image is being recorded.

Ah, CCTV. My last job before I retired was to deal with requests for
CCTV; processing footage for issue to police, insurance investigators
and the like.

There were not enough cameras to cover the full interior of the vehicle,
so there were many, many blind spots. And those cameras that we had were
frequently vandalised so that they were useless in the event of an
incident. Even if the miscreants *are* caught on camera, identifying
them and ensuring they are dealt with is a whole different ball game.

Getting the dead cameras repaired was also a nightmare; there was ONE
engineer to cover several garages and he was worked to a frazzle,
sometimes it would take him weeks to get around to us. In the meantime,
anything could have happened, and frequently did.

Summon urgent assistance. Ah, yes. There is an emergency button on the
radio system, true. But pressing it doesn't always result in assistance
arriving quickly, or even at all. In my driving days, I was once punched
in the mouth by a drunken yob for no reason other than I had politely
asked him to pay some bus fare. (This was in the days before full cab
door screens, but I've seen people punch their way through those as well).

So I sat there, blood streaming down my face, and pressed the emergency
button. The controller did come on the line quickly, true. But the first
words out of his mouth were not "are you ok..?" or "do you need
police/ambulance..?" No, he simply said "can you carry on in service..?"

I don't think I need to mention what my reply was.

--
Ria in Aberdeen

[Send address is invalid, use sipsoup at gmail dot com to reply direct]

Boris's bus related jinxes continue

On Thu, 3 Oct 2019 13:00:57 +0100
MissRiaElaine wrote:
So I sat there, blood streaming down my face, and pressed the emergency
button. The controller did come on the line quickly, true. But the first
words out of his mouth were not "are you ok..?" or "do you need
police/ambulance..?" No, he simply said "can you carry on in service..?"

I don't think I need to mention what my reply was.

If I had to do that job I'd carry a perfectly legal but nicely sharpened
penknife for occasions like that. I'd sooner lose my job than my life.

Boris's bus related jinxes continue