Tales From the Passenger Seat

2005

I don't know what the age limit is (if any) for becoming a bus driver for West Midlands travel, but I imagine it goes something like this. "Dear Bus Depot Boss, I can't come in today as I'm not feeling well, but I'm sending my son, P-Daddy, along to cover for me. I know he should be in school but he only has double PE and an English test and he's quite good behind the wheel, despite being only 12."

I swear to God, the driver of the bus I got on tonight didn't look old enough to be out of the womb let alone school. It sat there, hanging from the steering wheel, dribbling and bouncing up and down in its seat like it had Attention Deficit Disorder. I said as I got on, "Bit dark isn't it," because it clearly couldn't reach the switch for the interior lights - all the passengers were sitting in the dark looking like a load of startled bushbabies. The driver just grunted at me, too young to string words together.

The bus wobbled down roads. Really. Wobbled. First we were in the left lane, then the right, but most of the time we sort of straddled the centre line as if the driver couldn't quite make up his mind which lane he liked the most. It hesitated at traffic lights (marvelling, perhaps, at the pretty colours) and I got through a whole book chapter waiting for it to negotiate Five Ways island - we eventually lurched round it accompanied by a crescendo of car horns and screeching brakes.

I was quite worried, actually, that I wasn't as alarmed as I should have been. I guess after all these years of sitting on a bus twice a day, the antics of drivers and passengers alike no longer holds any fear for a hardened commuter like me - seen it all, done it all, and by some magnificent stroke of luck I'm still alive with some shreds of sanity intact.

Far from being concerned that I'm on a wobbly bus driven by some fetus who barely has the strength to turn the wheel, I slip into a deep catatonic state. I'd say it was my survival instinct kicking in - 'just go limp' - but my survival instinct died a long time ago, somewhere around Harborne at 7.55am on a wet Monday morning.

2006

Tonight I sit on the top deck of the bus in the front seat, where I have a clear view of the road ahead.

It quickly becomes obvious the driver is running a bit behind schedule because he's doing at least 90mph down this straight road - you can judge by the strength of the G-force on your face and internal organs roughly how fast you're going.

I'm pressed back into my seat as the world flashes past in a blur. Then, up ahead, a car slowly pulls out of a side road. The bus careers straight towards it. The car pulls out some more so its now directly in our path.

I thought I breathed "Oh shit!" under my breath, but the volume was closer to that used by nightclubbers when trying to talk to each other in front of 30 foot speakers on full blast. Every passenger who wasn't sitting at the front of the bus witnessing the impending catastrophe (that's all of them) stared at me and 'Not another nutter!' floated through the atmosphere.

The bus driver didn't make any attempt to brake. Instead, he used evasive tactics.

The bus suddenly veered violently to the right. It was now at a sharp 45 degree angle, still doing 90mph. Passengers were thrown sideways and gasped out loud in alarm ('Not another nutter' evaporated in the surge of panic). I threw my arm against the front window to brace myself and watched with wide eyes as the bus missed the front of the car by mere millimetres before veering violently to the left. It wobbled to an upright position and continued its sonic missile journey down the road.

37 shaky passengers got off at the next stop.

Wimps
.
It's journeys like this that add to the general joy of commuting.

2007

A very, very strange thing happened tonight. Something that has never happened to me before and probably never will again. It was creepy. I thought I'd entered The Twilight Zone or something.

I waited at the bus stop after work. The bus came almost straight away (amazing in itself, but that wasn't the strange thing). I got on, showed the driver my pass, turned and thought to myself, "Oh, look at that, all the downstairs seats are empty."

Staggered upstairs and discovered there was no-one upstairs either.

I was on a Completely Empty Bus! In Birmingham city centre! In rush hour!

I have to admit, this freaked me out a little. I'm used to jostling with fellow passenger, rugby tackling total strangers for the One Available Seat. I'm used to breathing in hot, stale air and getting elbowed in the ribs by the person next to me reading a broadsheet newspaper. I'm used to the head of an exhausted nine-to-fiver flopping onto my shoulder, and listening to a cacophony of people shrieking "I'm on the bus" into their mobile phones.

I am not used to Empty Buses.

I sat at the front, where I figured I could at least be seen by the outside world should anything happen to me on my lone journey. The bus approached the next stop. It didn't look as if it was going to stop. My heart swelled to 15 times its normal size. I snatched my mobile out of my bag.

"I'm on an empty bus," I told my Partner, "It could be a kidnapping."

"You're being kidnapped in a bus?"

"Its possible. There's no-one else on it. I mean NO-ONE."

"What do you want me to do?" he asked.

I had the urge to stand up and start singing Rescue Me down the empty aisle, but resisted. "I just wanted to tell someone," I said. "So if I don't come home, you'll know what happened to me."

I could see the news headlines now: "Knackered secretary disappears on empty bus." Or, in the Fortean Times "Brummie abducted by alien bus driver - Brummie heard to cry, 'Oi, mayte, watcha doing loike?'"

The traffic crawled forward. The bus wasn't even aimed at the people jumping up and down and waving their arms at it. I considered panicking - but really, I didn't have the energy. I considered leaping off the top deck to safety - but the windows are too narrow and, besides, my knees have been giving me gip lately.

And then it happened. The bus suddenly stopped. In the middle of the road. And opened its doors. And the crowd of people at the bus stop raced onto the bus.

And suddenly I was surrounded by people yelling into their mobile phones and shaking their newspapers out in front of my face.

And all was well with the world again.

2008

Still receiving therapy from years of commuting hell.

I don't use public transport any more. If I Absolutely Positively Have To, I find myself mumbling and dribbling a lot.

Jasper Carrott's famous 'nutter on the bus' isn't a nutter at all, but an ex-commuter into Birmingham city centre.