far too posh
i went on a lot of buses this week to meet the great unwashed and fortunately most of them were pleasantly clean
i did meet the usual nutter with the corned beef tin who swore it was a bomb
a bloke who picked all the rubbish off the floor to take home in his carrier bag
the chav who always insisted on putting their feet on the seat in front
the tinitus making person with their loud music (it felt like tinitus in my ears anyway)
the bus driver from hell who smashed every kerb with the back axle
the person who insisted on shutting the window even though we were all flagging in the heat
i did see people sitting in the outside seat so no one could sit with them
i saw the hard kid who stood all the way even though there were loads of seats
i saw loads of people with free bus passes and it was only this week i read that the bus company claims off the govt for every journey they make
i was on one bus where i could litterally feel the engine was going to fall out of it
and then i used some trains
and everything was exactly the same
why did i do this?
so i could go to a town have a walk round have a beer and basically relax
sometimes this can be so much more fun than going off to far flung places where you feel you must enjoy yourselves
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Good word picture BB. But not just chavs who put their feet on the seats. On second thoughts, you're right, if they do that they're chavs.
The less I have to do with the Great British Public, the better.
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>> The less I have to do with the Great British Public, the better.
I used to yearn so strongly to get away from Central London, away from the GBP crammed onto tubes (not so much buses, always took the tube).
Now that I have left it all behind, and travel almost exclusively by car, there is definitely a part of me that misses it.
How on Earth can that be? I've no idea.
Could it be that, when a man is tired of cramming onto buses and tubes, he is tired of life?
Last edited by: SteelSpark on Sun 11 Jul 10 at 12:42
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"Could it be that, when a man is tired of cramming onto buses and tubes, he is tired of life? ".
No. Next question. :-)
JH
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The last bus I went on, just a matter of weeks ago, had chewing gum on the seat next to the one my wife sat in. I spotted it, she didn't. So she moved. It also had a bunch of schoolkids making a heck of a din at the back, even to the point where the driver told them it wasn't a school bus, keep it down. It went down about 3db. Thank God I'm not a school bus driver.
It seemed to be compulsory at one time for buses not to have brake linings so that they could squeal loudly in town to annoy the pedestrians and choke them with lumps of coke coming out of the exhaust. I think they use a better quality of coal now.
No nutters muttering to themselves this time, though I have been on a train where the guy next to me was taken off by BT police and searched for a knife.
Plus they don't go where you want, when you want. I preferred my bike to the bus when I was young. If I ever can't afford a car I'll use a bike.
JH
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I sometimes take buses these days, because I don't have Kensington parking bumf or a resident's discount for the congestion charge, and that sort of thing does mount up when you're a bit skint as I usually am. I don't even have my old person's free bus pass any more, but oyster cards are affordable if you don't use them much.
Most of the buses I get are these ghastly Ken Livingstone articulated jobs. Although only a few years old they are starting to get body and chassis rattles, although the basic machinery is still smooth, powerful and quiet. They appear to have no air conditioning and at busy times of the morning are often pulled and emptied near here by large groups of police. So far that hasn't happened to one I was on.
When they stop, the whole bus leans over towards the pavement in a patronising manner, and then has to haul itself upright again before starting off. Damn silly if you ask me. They also have extendable side ramps for wheelchairs. The mechanism is noisy, fragile, slow and can go wrong and become more trouble than it's worth. A folding ramp operated by a conductor would of course be a hundred times better and cheaper and would provide employment for steady types.
The great unwashed don't bother me. I yield to none in my own occasional unwashedness. And in fact although not particularly decrepit I have more than once been offered a vacant seat by some polite younger person, statistically on buses round here often of Asian or Caribbean extraction. The great unwashed are cool in my book.
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>> When they stop, the whole bus leans over towards the pavement in a patronising manner,
>> and then has to haul itself upright again before starting off. Damn silly if you
>> ask me.
Wait 'til you get a little older... or are unlucky enough to get a "complaint" when you are still young like my wife... you may then see why they do that... not silly at all...
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>> Wait 'til you get a little older... or are unlucky enough to get a "complaint"
>> when you are still young like my wife... you may then see why they do
>> that... not silly at all...
>>
AC must be one of the "Me" generation who have no consideration for others, but shout the loudest for their own requirements.
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Wait 'til you get a little older... or are unlucky enough to get a "complaint"
Even under ideal circumstances I will be quite lucky to live another 15 years hobby, but I take your point that there are people who may be helped by the bus dropping three or four inches. It doesn't seem much more than that.
As for you ON, what a very perceptive fellow you seem to be. I imagine you know a fat lot about other things too. Raspberry.
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Most or all of the Arriva single deck buses in the Merseyside area can be dropped down almost to street level at the front nearside to enable the disabled, buggy/pram pushers or others who may find it difficult to get on and off the vehicle to do so more easily.
It's very much appreciated by those who need to make use of the feature and it's certainly much more than "three or four inches".
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>> As for you ON, Raspberry.
>>
Accepted with good grace. :-)
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>> Accepted with good grace. :-)
Heh heh... you cool ON.
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I travel to that London once a week, by train and tube, staying over night near St Pauls. If I'm going to meet up for a beer or 2 I always take the bus. If you keep your pay as you go Oyster topped up the fares are surprisingly cheap. The buses seem frequent, clean and safe.
And well used.
Back home in Cheltenham the buses are the complete opposite, irregular, unreliable and expensive.
Now you could say Cheltenham hasn’t got the demand for a better bus service, but which came first the expensive poor service or the lack of demand?
Having lived in Sheffield in its glory days as the Soviet Republic of South Yorkshire I am sure that if you make buses very cheap or free, people will get out of their cars and the buses will be packed.
MPZ
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On Merseyside the bus service is, generally, very reliable and frequent (and I'm not just saying that because I'm biased!!). However, it is not cheap. When I started on the buses in Southport, the most expensive fare was 95p. Now, eleven years later it is £1.90. If there are three or people travelling together, it is cheaper to get a taxi!
What annoys me is that in Southport, day and weekly tickets are expensive. As Stuartli has mentioned, Arriva have the monopoly here and basically do as they please. The service is still frequent and, by and large, reliable and the bus fleet is almost 100% low-floor, becoming totally low floor in September. There has also been a large investment in the town of 15 brand new buses.
In Liverpool, where I drive buses, Arriva and Stagecoach compete on some services. Stagecoach's day and week tickets are considerably cheaper than Arriva's (by 50% in some cases). There has been a huge investment in new buses by both companies, with Stagecoach only having five step-entrance buses in a fleet of nearly 180.
However, the fares are rather expensive - £1.70 or £1.80 for Stagecoach (though in practice I only ever charge £1.70 as it's much easier) and I do get embarrassed asking for that amount for a journey of less than a mile. Ok, the passenger could, in most cases, walk the distance but that isn't really the point. For a family of two adults and two children making a journey into town and back, the return bus fare will be £10.20. Is that really an incentive to leave the car behind?
I don't really know what the solution would be as obviously the bus companies (large and small) need to make a profit. But I do believe that fares need to be lower. I'd like to see more use of off-bus ticketing, ie being able to buy your ticket when you nip in to the newsagent to buy your paper, or being able to buy your ticket via text message. That would reduce the amount of cash that I have to handle and, once the systems have been put in place, would probably be cheaper to administrate hopefully leading to a reduction in fares.
Last edited by: Badwolf on Tue 13 Jul 10 at 13:42
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>> But I do believe that fares need to
>> be lower. I'd like to see more use of off-bus ticketing, ie being able to
>> buy your ticket when you nip in to the newsagent to buy your paper,
Thats a good idea, and widely used on the Continent... More bus/train tickets would help... we still have a long way to go! The West Midlands Day Rover is a bargain at about a fiver, bus and train anywhere from Wolves to Coventry! I've also noticed that South Yorkshire seems pretty cheap as well... I always used the bus in Edinburgh when I lived there, hardly seemed any point in getting the car out...
Though any use of bus or train you have to allow extra time over a car... and thats the thing most car users can't accept...
Last edited by: hobby on Tue 13 Jul 10 at 15:32
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Well, whatever they do and however cheap they make it, no-one will get me on the trains or busses.
I worked long and hard to be able to afford my first car. Nothing has changed and i've worked hard for every car since.
I pay road tax, insurance and maintain it to a safe legal standard, and as far as I'm concerned, that gives me the right to travel alone, at a time convenient to me and go from door to door.
Pat
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My sentiments exactly, Pat.
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you cant look in peoples gardens
down ladies tops
and into bedrooms from a car
though..............................................................
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I used to love buses, and travel everywhere on them. Then two things happened in quick succession:
1) I got a car. This meant if I wanted to stay at a mate's (or perhaps more vitally, girlfriend's) house past "last bus" time, I could.
2) My dad stopped working for the bus company, and they took my free pass away.
Last edited by: DP on Tue 13 Jul 10 at 19:45
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Here in Bristol First have a stranglehold on the bus services. From my house to central bristol its 4.40 one way or £8 return, and that was about a year ago. I am sure I can drive 16 miles for quite a bit less.
I would consider dropping to a one car household if the bus from the end of my road went anywhere near work, but it dosent and if it did it would be to expensive
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I live in North Somerset too Mike (definitely not Avon). I agree totally about the second rate First service - unreliable and overpriced.
Driving to work costs me about £3 for the round trip in fuel; I can sit in air conditioned comfort on a chewing gum free seat, with my choice of music on, the trip usually takes less than 30 minutes, and I can leave at a reasonable time. Going by bus would mean leaving the house well before 7, for a 45 minute journey, at a cost of around £6. No contest at all really.
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>> I live in North Somerset too Mike (definitely not Avon).
Ah. Anywhere near Puxton?
>> Driving to work costs me about £3 for the round trip in fuel
What about when you calculate the trip cost including all costs?
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>>Ah. Anywhere near Puxton?
I live in Weston FT, on the south side of town, work in Clevedon.
>>What about when you calculate the trip cost including all costs?
Difficult to put a figure on this - tax and insurance combined is about £600 a year, plus say £300 for maintenance. That makes the car about £200 more expensive a year if it was used purely for work, but we have a car regardless of whether I drive to work or not. If we go into town at the weekend for example the cost of the trip including parking will be around £4. Cost by bus - two adults and four children - will be over £10.
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>> peoples gardens
>> down ladies tops
>> and into bedrooms
those hawthorns need trimming ... and that privet needs to be dug up and burned ...
I say! Embonpoint! Pulchwitude! (bulges eyes a la Michael Winner, gets savagely hit and insulted by wife and daughters, sniggers triumphantly)
they're just playing dear, ooh look, there's a big black car
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I have to go down south in a few weeks time and got the entire train tickets for less than £40, that is total of five trains. I would guess that is 400 miles so even in my car I doubt it would be any cheaper, and I would be so tired I would crash anyway! You can't sleep while driving.
The funny thing is I use my car all the time locally now if I am not drinking instead of taking buses like I used to. I still do get the tram into town though (I drive to the station).
Really my biggest fixed cost is my car insurance, tax is only £30 a year anyway. My insurance is about £2.20 per day and my loan is £128 a month so my car costs me at least £5 a day just to keep outside my house. For me a car is far far more expensive than using public transport but I can't imagine life without it now. If I had to do a job in Didsbury (a regular thing) I used to have to allow an hour to get there (either walking or bus) now its just a ten to twenty minute drive. Although I make a 3 mile trip into 5 miles just to keep the engine running a bit longer.
I love the trams but I can't transport PCs on them and that is why my car is essential. When the tram comes to my area next year I can't imagine ever using a bus apart from the usual 3:10am one home. To me buses are too slow and too expensive compared to trains and other forms of public transport. To get the bus into town and back it would cost me £3.50 (a day rider) but I can get to town and back on the tram for £2.20 and its a much nicer experience.
I am also finding since I got the Panda I am driving a lot more than I used to do.
Manchester is a funny city and the buses work out as the following:-
North and East - First Bus and some smaller companies
South - Stagecoach and a few Arriva services
South East - Stagecoach
South West - Arriva.
So it means tickets become a nightmare.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Tue 13 Jul 10 at 22:51
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>> You can't sleep while
>> driving.
you can, however you cant drive while sleeping.
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Wanna get platerado on Leffe with an Iraqi Sheikha?
Let me know when you're free.
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and dont forget, the offer a meet wiv a brass who will show you er fruppnies still stands.
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>> the offer a meet wiv a brass who will show you er fruppnies still stands.
Branching out in retirement Zeddo? Or was that sort of thing always part of the IT repertoire?
Heavens to betsy, you learn something new every day...
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just a natural extension of the service industry Effendi.
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>>..if I am not drinking ..>>
Can't be many such occasions, Rattle?
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I don't drink at all during the week but at weekends I tend to drink too much so I tend to park the car up on Friday evening and it dosn't get driven again until Monday, unless I don't go out saturday and go out friday instead.
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How to get people onto buses... - Bellboy
