What is it about buses?

[swbarnett]

Because us aucklanders are stuck in our auckland ways there would be waaay to many accidents haha

Only in the short term. Our drivers would soon get used to it.

This is the problem with most of our bad driving behaviour - they get away with it (and I don't mean no ticket, I mean no direct physical concequences). If a few cars were squashed because they didn't give way to a bus attitudes would change pretty damn quick.

[Swoop]

Because us aucklanders are stuck in our auckland ways

Unfortunately it is not "just an Auckland" thing.

We really need to cancel all driving licences and re-test + re-issue all of them if they meet a new standard.


Change of thought:
Having a chat with my relly, that drives busses in Auckland, for a living.
"What are your thoughts on car drivers and motorbike riders, from a bus-driving point of view?"
-"A bike appears and then disappears. We rarely, if ever, discuss bikes as being a problem or hazard."
- "Car drivers... "(all the same amounts of bitching that we see here on KB...)
-"The number ONE problem for busses? Psyclists!
"Arrogance, stupidity, taking risks, etc, etc."

I found it quite interesting.

[Hiflyer]

Change of thought:
Having a chat with my relly, that drives busses in Auckland, for a living.
"What are your thoughts on car drivers and motorbike riders, from a bus-driving point of view?"
-"A bike appears and then disappears. We rarely, if ever, discuss bikes as being a problem or hazard."- "Car drivers... "(all the same amounts of bitching that we see here on KB...)
-"The number ONE problem for busses? Psyclists!
"Arrogance, stupidity, taking risks, etc, etc."

I found it quite interesting.

maybe its cos we take up less space? and maybe thats why they just dont give a crap when they pull out (that and maybe they dont see us)

[Elysium]

Hey guys, im a bus driver.

Now i dont want to take my following as saying that what this driver was right but i just want to share some perspective.

NZ has a horrible case of beat the bus syndrome, and that is because unlike in aussie busses do not get right of way, which they should for the public transport system to strive

I have seen people pull in front of busses (daily, multiple times in the day)
people cut busses off (we dont stop that fast guys...)
people pull their nose into traffic on skinny roads (so we have to stop cause we physically can not fit down the road)
and the list goes on, in short most road users act like complete retards when it comes to busses

most people dont like to use busses cause they dont get there fast enough, though they wouldnt give way to a bus so its more likely to run on time....

so all the above leads the drivers to do stupid things too. not always on purpose but often because keeping that buss off of the other road users is so mentally draining that mistakes can be made.

and as for the above case you may have been in the busses blind spot and the driver foolishly didnt head check.

just some perspective from the other side

Sorry mate but I've seen too many bus drivers here in Palmy and other cities do things like not stopping at busy pedestrian crossings, cutting off divers/bikers on multi-lane roads, not looking right(or when they do they continue on regardless if your already indicating and commited to turning) at round abouts bla bla.

Bus drivers aint going to be respected until they weed out the bad drivers or properly train those that need it. I use to take the bus when I was at school and I can tell you the drivers were better at their job then todays bus drivers. Too many in a hurry these days.

[swbarnett]

Too many in a hurry these days.

I talked to a bus driver a few years back who reckoned this was because the timetable had become unrealistic and the only way to meet it was to drive like a maniac.

[MarkH]

The bus thing is not only in Auckland, I saw a doco (on the cook strait ferry, on the way back from a motorcycle rally) about the traffic problems in London. One man was angry at a bus company whose drivers are always driving badly, one driver had gone through a pedestrian crossing and killed his wife. The doco looked at the problems caused by SUVs doing the school run, cyclists, pedestrians and buses - all trying to share the roads and the ensuing conflicts.

My own observations: the vast majority of truck drivers show consideration and drive considerately. No so with Bus & Taxi drivers - too many fuck'n arseholes! (I recently had to do an emergency stop for a taxi doing a U-turn on a busy street - he wasn't even watching for oncoming traffic).

[Ixion]

I talked to a bus driver a few years back who reckoned this was because the timetable had become unrealistic and the only way to meet it was to drive like a maniac.

For various reasons, not germane to this discussion, I conducted an experiment a few years back, wherin I used only public transport (mainly buses) for two weeks. It was hell on earth.

But I made a number of observations in the course of it (all ignored by TPTB of course). One of which was that it was simply impossible for the drivers to keep to the timetable . They just were not allowed enough time , given modern traffic. I suspect that the timetables are worked out by some pimply youth in an office, by calculation from GPS distance data and some theoretical average speeed. Rather than by an experienced driver going out and seeing how long it really takes.

The stress of trying to meet an impossible target must make the drivers inclined to take risks, and also to adopt a "bugger you I don't give a stuff " attitude.

Which is not to say that some of the drivers are not astonishingly bad. But the bus companies (which I think are VERY poorly managed, and are far more interested in collecting subsidies than providing a transport service) must take some of the blame.

[Macontour]

My Tour Coach has great mirrors, I can back it up quite happily into small gaps using them. They do have a problem however that occasionally appears. Because of their size and their placement right at eye level, on tight right hand bends my right mirror can hide a large part of the corner and I have to look around it to see the corner properly.

It can also hide cars on roundabouts when the conditions of angle of approach by me, speed of the car and its position on the roundabout and my speed relative to the car. If it can hide a car then it can certainly hide a motorcycle and maybe occasionally this situation is what leads to bikes not being seen.

Because I am aware of these problems that only happen occasionally I counteract them by being extra vigilant because the mirrors are perfect otherwise.

[longwayfromhome]

Just a few observations since the thread has widened in scope.....
1. Comment on Auckland drivers "in general" based on a comparison...in Sydney they are aggressive but predictable (e.g. merging), while in Auckland they are less aggressive but far less predictable...for many people who have experienced both, the predictability is precious, especially for bike riders.
2. Comment on American/guns/driving, based on riding there for 11 years....the drivers are a lot more courteous, it becomes a habit, in fact they can be too courteous and it becomes counterproductive to efficient travel. Also, signs of aggression in drivers are taken seriously...one time I was in the wrong, got tooted, and flipped the guy off in a "yeah, whatever" response...he went kinda crazy trying to get me to stop and confront me, which I might have done to apologize except his reaction was so over the top to the personal slight I gave him that I decided discretion was the better part of valor. Then it happened a couple of other times where I was in the right, with the same reaction from the other driver...crazy over-compensation...I had to give up the practice. This strange mixture of passivity-aggression, politeness-crazyness forces most drivers into a "polite" mode of driving where an obvious shaking of the head as a commentary on the other's driving is the equivalent of our hanging out the window and slagging off the other driver.
3. I was in a Beachhaven bus once years ago, at the bottom of Onewa Rd, merging for the red light. The bus stopped, there was some shouting and a cage driver wrenched the bus driver's window open, whacked the driver in the head and drove off....guess he was American :-). Those bus drivers can be very frustrating.
4. Be that as it may, I have observed this in many drivers in Auckland.....merging position/sequence is "generally" decided by the position of the front of your car...if you are in front then its generally you who is next in the resultant single lane of traffic. But for some reason, people want to apply another rule to buses and seem to think that if they are simply beside a bus, then that is sufficient and the equivalent of them being ever so slightly in front of the bus. Its a tad unreasonable. Its even better when they pull up beside a truck at the end of a high-speed passing lane out in the country and proceed to play what-if with their passenger's lives and see who has the stronger nerve between them and the truck driver.

Filtering around buses, for me the rule is to zip by them in the shortest period possible, not idle down and give them time to do whatever..miss seeing you, look past you, deliberately squeeze you. On a big bike like the LT you have even less chance to escape than on regular bikes.