Strangest thing you've seen/heard on a bus.

[David57]

An Asian man with a not very good command of English.

I am driving the last X7 Leicester-Milton Keynes bus and he asks at the terminus in MK 'are we in Leicester'?.....

He rang a contact, and I spoke to them, advised that the only options were that I would take the Gentleman back to Northampton (where the bus went out of duty) for free, but couldn't get to Leicester that evening, or the X5 to Bedford, and a train from there to Leicester, the advisor on the phone chose the latter option.

You just feel for people sometimes......

 

[Martin1988]

During a National Express journey from Birmingham to Leeds I ended up sitting next to a teenage boy who was traveling as far as Derby. He proceeded to tell me about how he'd been arrested in Birmingham during the day and was already on bail so when he got home the police would be waiting to take him to prison. He also told me all about how he'd already been inside before and had first been sent down at the age of 10!. The lady sat opposite us then started going on about how her brother had been in prison.

I also remember another journey on the old 43 Cribbs Causeway-Bristol City Centre route where I ended up being sat by a 2-3 year old girl who had a fondness for the Chim-Chimeney song(from Mary Poppins) and kept asking her mum if they could sing it. In the end they did.

Also, a couple of years back when I was traveling back from Brislington late in on a Saturday evening there were a load of drunk teenagers on board the bus who were attempting to sing Wurzels songs really badly.

 

[90019]

Not one I personally saw, but one from another driver.
He was driving a Pointer on a 29 to Gilmerton in late 2003, when the bus was around a year old. He turned into the terminus and stopped the bus, at which point the windscreen fell out.

 

[Busaholic]

Not one I personally saw, but one from another driver.
He was driving a Pointer on a 29 to Gilmerton in late 2003, when the bus was around a year old. He turned into the terminus and stopped the bus, at which point the windscreen fell out.

Certainly a Pointer to something!

 

[RJ]

Getting onto a N35 in Brixton to find the driver with his head slumped, ready to go to sleep. He would later crash the bus into a minicab. I never saw him again.

A singing driver on the P4. He drives with his head up in the air and eyes closed whilst bellowing out his favourite ballards. 2 minutes in he starts drumming on the dashboard.

 

[quarella]

Not me but my father managed to drive the last bus from Bristol to Portishead on a Saturday night in 1990 and not have to mop it out afterwards! Avon subsidised route taking no revenue, all passengers on Badgerline returns. Kebab wrappers, cans and goodness knows what it would often come back in a dreadful state. The usual traction was a T reg Bedford Duple Dominant IV with bus grant doors. For some reason the manager had allocated the Dominant III with trapezoid windows inherited from a takeover and sold very quickly. It had a few tables and the interior lighting had a very pinkish hue. Not one to touch a switch unless he has to the radio had been left on which was, unusually tuned to BBC Radio 3. So classical music and pink lights keep a coach tidy.

 

[Bantamzen]

Many years ago on a school special on the way home, we were approaching a rather narrow section of road in Lidget Green, west of Bradford city centre. In front a car had stalled / broken down in front and had been pushed to one side as much as it it could have been leaving a narrow gap for the bus to pass. But the driver was unsure about the width and approached very slowly, and as he did so a sixth former quick as a flash shouted, "You could get a bus through there mate". I use this one to this day!

Another was more recently on a TLC 653 Bradford - Otley service. As we approached the penultimate stop adjacent to Waitwrose in Otley, a gentleman carrying a suitcase & another bag rang the bell to get off. As the driver pulled to a halt, said man asked the driver if he could leave the bags on the bus. The driver responded in the negative saying that he would be making the return journey in just a few minutes and it was unlikely that the chap could make it back from whatever his plans were. So slightly annoyed, the chap got off the bus an promptly downed said bags by the side of the road and wandered off about his business. Bemused the driver eventually pulled away, and my wife and I wondered if the bags would still be there when we planned our return a few hours later. They were, albeit having been moved from the roadside into the bus shelter!

And just a couple of weeks ago on a 72 Bradford - Leeds service waiting to leave Bradford Interchange, a chap walked on and asked the conductor if this was the Leeds bus. The conductor confirmed that it was and the passenger immediately turned around and got off!

 

[PeterC]

A passenger route training the driver...

Had that coming home today.

 

[londonbridge]

I've had experience of several of the examples listed. Was on a rail replacement bus between Doncaster and Peterborough, the driver got lost and a passenger who lived in Peterborough ended up directing him to the station. Also a driver who missed a right hand turn, several passengers shouting "Where ya going"?, etc, he stopped and apologised, saying he usually drove a different route and was subbing for a driver who'd gone sick. Cue several passengers trying to work out the best way to get him back on to the line of route involving a tight squeeze between parked cars down some very narrow side roads.

Also in a previous job, when getting the 5.40am bus for a 6.00am start on Saturday mornings, the regular driver would pull up outside a newsagents inbetween stops around 5.50 and nip in to get his paper.

 

[scotsman]

50+ year old man in back row of bus on the phone: "Hey sexy...oh...is your mum in?"

 

[Alistair G.]

A few years back I used to do weekend driving with a firm in coventry. Because I only done weekends they always stuck me on the same running cards so they didn't have to do too much route learning.

On one Saturday I was dropping an old lady off in the village of birdingbury and she asked how my day had been, I told her it had been busy and I'm ready to get home as i always start to get hungry on the last route of the day.

She continued making conversation and being as the bus went past her house I would always stop to drop her outside rather than make her walk back from the village square.

Anyway, the following week I'm driving down the same road and see the old lady at the end of her drive and she's got her hand out flagging the bus down. So I stop and open my doors and she has a plate of sandwiches and a packet of crisps.

She says "I thought you might be hungry dear, I hope you like cheese and pickle"

She didn't want to catch the bus, she had stopped me just to give me some sandwiches and she done that every week I was on that route. All I had to do was stop on the route back in and she would take the plate back off me.

I was sad to hear she passed away last year but she was the sweetest old lady anyone could have wished for!. God bless you Doreen!

 

[Busaholic]

The strangest story I have concerning a bus driver occurred about three years ago on a no. 3 bus in London. I boarded the bus in Croxted Road and noticed that the youngish driver was having what appeared to be very flirtatious banter with a young woman and this continued for a couple of stops, with him driving very slowly and seeming to be taking little heed of the road ahead (I remained on the lower deck as we were only half a dozen stops from the terminus.) When we got to this second stop a woman suddenly appeared from behind a wall and started screaming to be let on, which the driver did. The second woman starts screaming at the first, slightly younger woman, and at first I thought, ho hum, another day in London town, it's only 10 a.m. and it's kicked off already. It was only after about ten minutes of to-ing and fro-ing between the two women and the bus driver, who'd got out of his cab by this stage, that I realised we had a scorned wife catching her husband at it, as it were. I never found out what happened because, in common with the handful of equally bemused passengers, I got off and caught another no. 3, a further one having already passed us.

Actually, it many ways it's the oldest story in the world, just one I'd never seen conducted on a bus before!

 

[Deerfold]

I recall a programme on a few years ago about the Routemaster with various conductors reminiscing. One commented on how good the job was for picking up young ladies.

However he had one day when one girlfriend was on the upper deck and another at the front of the bottom deck. He was just about managing, dashing between the two and collecting fares when his wife boarded and sat at the back of the bottom deck.

 

[ECML180]

One of the funniest things that's happened to me was on a tour coach, that had met 2 others at the depot to split passengers into feeder coaches and taxis on the return leg. Normally we're quite slick but one particular time we had 2 full coaches waiting 30 minutes late because we couldn't get the numbers to balance. In the end we ended up having to take a register and after a while we got to a Mr Smith...no answer, I called it again and the voice of a little old dear says "he's under my skirt!"

It turned out he got back on the wrong coach and to avoid embarrassment snook back on to the right coach via the continental door between head counts. The lady at the back was enjoying laughing at us drivers so much she decided to hide him and keep it going!

 

[Bakerloo]

Weirdest thing was when I (a passenger) was helping guide a new driver for Bus 4 (London) through Central London. He was completely lost and had no idea where he was going

The other passengers were in disbelief

 

[Busaholic]

Weirdest thing was when I (a passenger) was helping guide a new driver for Bus 4 (London) through Central London. He was completely lost and had no idea where he was going

The other passengers were in disbelief

Wondered why that number 4 turned up at Buck House.

 

[quarella]

At a terminus I was chatting to another driver, a retired NBC chap doing a bit a part time driving. Passengers were boarding the free bus back into town from a local market. He was going on to do a private hire later and, handed the waybill to me to check the details with the words,

" 'ere. Read this for me young'un. I can't see a thing without me glasses."

The look on the face of the passengers in the seat behind him was priceless and the lady getting on momentarily paused.

 

[ECML180]

" 'ere. Read this for me young'un. I can't see a thing without me glasses."

I worked with a driver like that in the past, oldest person in the company at 86! Spent a few days a week pootling around in an 8 seater, sometimes a 16 seater if we were stuck on a mix of schools work and feeders. With the feeders we had to give him verbal directions before each one as he couldn't read the addresses on the work tickets!

All of this was until one day when a new bloke got promoted to manager and insisted we re-take copies of all licences to file. When we photocopied his the manager was shocked to see he still held a full cat. d licence...he was out in a 6 month old 15m long Van Hool the next day!

 

[neilmc]

This is genuine; in 1963 I went to grammar school in Leeds and us first years played rugby on a Friday. However, the school field must have been double-booked because we did a cross-country to a farmer's field in Colton to play, and had a bus to bring us back, usually an elderly AEC Regent 3 from Torre Road garage.

However the farmer also kept cows in the field so we were tackling and slithering around in the cow pats, then we got on the bus caked in cow poo. Mothers probably put up with such things in those days, but I wondered about the passengers who caught the AEC Regent in peak time service afterwards.

 

[NorthernSpirit]

A passenger route training the driver...

I've done that before now, a driver on the then operated by Centrebus service 951 Peak Daytripper only knew the route as far as Holmfirth, after that it was oblivion to the driver so I explained where to to and where to turn off. Before alighting at Glossop, I explained to the driver to follow the route back some once leaving the B6106 onto the A628 take the first left for Holmfirth which is the start of the A6024 and follow it back to Holmfirth.

Said driver was on the last journey and he did say to me that without me being on board that he would have ended up in Hadfield and thanked us for my assistance.

 

[Martin1988]

I once had to help direct a First driver back to Yate on the old 328 route from Bristol as I was the only passenger on the bus. At the time I wasn't too familiar with the roads the route took around Winterbourne and we kept ending up back on the main road in Iron Acton/Frampton Cottrell and having to make a left turn back the other way.

 

[ThePannier]

Was once using Arriva North East's dreadful Service X93 after a trip to Scarborough. I was using it all the way to Middlesbrough, and I was sat at the front upstairs. There were two chavs sitting at the back, and then I turned around to see them rolling up cigarettes. Me being a teenager, and so not a smoker, I wouldn't have the first clue what they were doing - but I think it's what I've heard people called 'rollies', where they get it out of the packet and roll it up before smoking it.

Seen plenty of strange things on buses, though.

 

[Tom B]

I've done that before now, a driver on the then operated by Centrebus service 951 Peak Daytripper only knew the route as far as Holmfirth, after that it was oblivion to the driver so I explained where to to and where to turn off. Before alighting at Glossop, I explained to the driver to follow the route back some once leaving the B6106 onto the A628 take the first left for Holmfirth which is the start of the A6024 and follow it back to Holmfirth.

Said driver was on the last journey and he did say to me that without me being on board that he would have ended up in Hadfield and thanked us for my assistance.

A route back home ran every hour daytime only, so only two shifts ever ran it - both done by regular drivers. When one of those was on holiday a relief driver would be sent and would usually rely on a passenger to give them directions on the first run!

 

[Y961 XBU]

I remember someone getting caught on a JPT Bus giving himself a bit (hope you know what i mean)

 

[Deerfold]

I remember someone getting caught on a JPT Bus giving himself a bit (hope you know what i mean)

Absolutely no idea, no.

 

[Welshman]

I don't think I want to know, thank you.

 

[DelayRepay]

Late one night I was the only passenger on the Rail Replacement bus between Manchester and Sheffield. As I was the only passenger I sat near at the front and was chatting to the driver. He asked me if I was hungry and when I said I was, he stopped outside a kebab shop. I had to run in and get our supper because he was on double yellows!

(I did wonder if it was a ploy to get rid of me but he was still there when I got back with our chips!)

 

[Busaholic]

Late one night I was the only passenger on the Rail Replacement bus between Manchester and Sheffield. As I was the only passenger I sat near at the front and was chatting to the driver. He asked me if I was hungry and when I said I was, he stopped outside a kebab shop. I had to run in and get our supper because he was on double yellows!

(I did wonder if it was a ploy to get rid of me but he was still there when I got back with our chips!)

Bet he was if you were paying!

 

[Wyvern]

REminds me when I was fourteen or so we still had bus conductors and one was very popular with the lads. One day a policeman arrived at my house and asked my Mum if he could speak to me. He asked me if this conductor had made any "improper advances" to me. Since I hadn't the faintest idea of what he was talking about I said "No."

 

[howittpie]

Late one night I was the only passenger on the Rail Replacement bus between Manchester and Sheffield. As I was the only passenger I sat near at the front and was chatting to the driver. He asked me if I was hungry and when I said I was, he stopped outside a kebab shop. I had to run in and get our supper because he was on double yellows!

That reminds me of a long time ago when traveling on the Nat Ex Huddersfield to London service in the days it was Rapide with refreshment and served a lot more places such as Leicester, Milton Keynes, Luton both town and airport. As I was a regular traveller the driver who took the coach from Huddersfield to Nottingham asked if I would help the driver who took over the driving find the places on route has he had never done it before. It meant I got a free breakfast when we stopped at the services for a comfort stop.