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I thought this would be a good subject for some ranting here. 
It's a common enough problem. I travel by public transport all the time and have a sighting at least once a week, but it's normally nothing special. These are my best ones from many years of travelling by bus and train etc.
For some reason all the worst bus stories are from when I lived in Brighton, going to university. It's lovely, it's by the sea, and good god they have insane drivers there...
That is not the logical solution.
One morning I got yh bus into campus. The bus gets to the campus, and drives right round before turning in a circle and stopping so the driver gets a break before heading back out to the town. I was the only passenger left by this stop, and I walked down from the top of the bus (double decker) to stand by the exit.
This was when the driver began to have problems.
It was the day of the winter graduation. They held 2 main graduation ceremonies every summer, and one winter one for people who graduated late. It was much smaller but still brought extra traffic in (Including Richard Attenborough parking his limo on a double yellow line - apparently you can do that if you are the chancellor
). Including someone who had parked where they shouldn't up by the final roundabout.
The driver had to get between a signpost and this vehicle. The gap was smaller than the vehicle.
It was at this point the driver had a nervous breakdown. She tried and tried to manouvre through, then began crying (saying she had hit a dog earlier in the day, and telling me all about the paperwork involved).
Then she made her decision. The only course of action was to run down that pole. No reversing. No stopping until the car was moved, she'd just knock that pole out of her way.
Which she did, with a huge crash, and some scrapes to the bus.
I finally got of the bus, kind of smiling at her and backing away, and went to sit down for a bit. I was very pleased never to notice the same woman driving again.
Calm down
I was on another bus going down to the marina, where there's a large Asda store (which the cliff wall once fell on, but that's another story). Just turning the corner to head down the cliff the bus got cut up by a bad driver.
Driver started honking.
Macho idiot started honking back.
Then they started the gestures, and the swearing.
Then the driver got out of the bus and challenged the other driver to a fight in the street.
The other driver was luckily to scared to get out of his car, and drover off. After a couple of minutes the driver got back into the bus and drove us the rest of the way.
Making a fool of myself
Got to include a story where I am the idiot. It was in Brighton that I first saw the bus seats that fold up when no one's sitting on them. They have them at the front of the bus so the space can also be used for wheel chairs, buggies, shopping trolleys...
This was after I'd left university. My mother and I went down for a couple of days to visit the seaside, and when we went to go home we had a lot more bags than we started out with (Brighton's like that, great for shopping). So we got the bus back up to the station, and I was holding approximately 9 zillion bags.
I staggered onto the bus, popped the seat down, put the bags down, popped the seat down again, sat down,...
and ended up flat on the floor because the seat had popped back.
And it was awful. No one said anything, no one laughed. My mother was sitting in a normal seat opposite, and refusing to make eye contact and trying not to start giggling. And eventually I just said to her "I don't know why you're pretending you don't know me, I only made a fool out of myself". Then someone at the back started laughing, and someone made a joke - and it was all much less horrible.
I don't mind being a fool, but when you're such a fool everyone finds it painful not funny...
My mother making a fool of herself
Years before I lived in Brighton we would go down for the day by train. This is a long time ago when they still had the trains with compartments opening off along a corridor. I must have been about 12, travelling with my mother and her friend.
My mother and her friend bought cups of coffee and I had a tin of coke. They made this huge deal out of giving it to me, how I had to be careful, how it was difficult to drink on a moving train, and I had to make absolutely sure I didn't spill any.
Then they started drinking. Then the train hit a bumpy patch.
I swear there was coffee dripping from the ceiling of the compartment. I didn't spill a drop of my drink and was just sat there staring at them --->
I think we were still laughing when we got there.
Celebrity drink spilling
It was also a train to Brighton where I saw one of ZZ Top spill hot coffee on his crotch. At the time I didn't know who he was, but did struggle not laughing.
My mother can be impressive sometimes
I wasn't there for this one - my mother and a friend got one of the old buses with a conductor. My mother got on and within a minute or so had remarked to her friend that the conductor seemed over stressed and in need of a break before he had a breakdown.
Half way through the journey he had a breakdown.
Someone made space for him to sit down, and he spent the rest of the journey sitting there crying.
The passengers took over the bus. They rang the bell to tell the driver to move. They didn't collect money, but they did tell people they couldn't stand on the platform with the door...
Apparently my mother's friend was impressed with my mother's prediction.
Bad passengers
Not sure anyone's worth a whole story, and there are so many.
There was the time on the tube I had my eyes closed listening to music and when I opened them everyone was staring at me. Then I realised they were staring at the man next to me who was talking to himself and holding a large kitchen knife he'd just taken out of it's packaging.
Luckily he then went on to take his new socks out of the packaging, which was much less scary.
There was a man on the bus who believed I was using my mobile to record him - rather to play soduko so I could ignore him.
I'm sure I'll think of more interesting ones.
Oh - I'm an idiot again
I can't believe I forgot this. It's another train to Brighton story too.
I got on the train to Brighton, and shortly before we left someone accompanied a blind man to the carriage and helped him aboard. Then they asked me if I was going to the last stop, and would I help him get off. I agreed.
At the last stop I went over and asked if he wanted help (because I was a bit embarrassed about them asking me to help without involving him at all). He did.
First he asked me to stand on his right, and I stood on the left. He only had one arm so that took a bit of sorting out.
Then I helped him walk down the platform. He held me arm and I looked really carefully to make sure where he was going.
Unfortunately I forgot to look where I was going. I was one step away from walking into a pole, and I had to ask the guy to shuffle over and explain that I was about to walk into something
He didn't seem to have the same confidence in me after that...
Victoria J
It's a common enough problem. I travel by public transport all the time and have a sighting at least once a week, but it's normally nothing special. These are my best ones from many years of travelling by bus and train etc. For some reason all the worst bus stories are from when I lived in Brighton, going to university. It's lovely, it's by the sea, and good god they have insane drivers there...
That is not the logical solution.
One morning I got yh bus into campus. The bus gets to the campus, and drives right round before turning in a circle and stopping so the driver gets a break before heading back out to the town. I was the only passenger left by this stop, and I walked down from the top of the bus (double decker) to stand by the exit.
This was when the driver began to have problems.
It was the day of the winter graduation. They held 2 main graduation ceremonies every summer, and one winter one for people who graduated late. It was much smaller but still brought extra traffic in (Including Richard Attenborough parking his limo on a double yellow line - apparently you can do that if you are the chancellor
). Including someone who had parked where they shouldn't up by the final roundabout. The driver had to get between a signpost and this vehicle. The gap was smaller than the vehicle.
It was at this point the driver had a nervous breakdown. She tried and tried to manouvre through, then began crying (saying she had hit a dog earlier in the day, and telling me all about the paperwork involved).
Then she made her decision. The only course of action was to run down that pole. No reversing. No stopping until the car was moved, she'd just knock that pole out of her way.
Which she did, with a huge crash, and some scrapes to the bus.
I finally got of the bus, kind of smiling at her and backing away, and went to sit down for a bit. I was very pleased never to notice the same woman driving again.
Calm down
I was on another bus going down to the marina, where there's a large Asda store (which the cliff wall once fell on, but that's another story). Just turning the corner to head down the cliff the bus got cut up by a bad driver.
Driver started honking.
Macho idiot started honking back.
Then they started the gestures, and the swearing.
Then the driver got out of the bus and challenged the other driver to a fight in the street.
The other driver was luckily to scared to get out of his car, and drover off. After a couple of minutes the driver got back into the bus and drove us the rest of the way.
Making a fool of myself
Got to include a story where I am the idiot. It was in Brighton that I first saw the bus seats that fold up when no one's sitting on them. They have them at the front of the bus so the space can also be used for wheel chairs, buggies, shopping trolleys...
This was after I'd left university. My mother and I went down for a couple of days to visit the seaside, and when we went to go home we had a lot more bags than we started out with (Brighton's like that, great for shopping). So we got the bus back up to the station, and I was holding approximately 9 zillion bags.
I staggered onto the bus, popped the seat down, put the bags down, popped the seat down again, sat down,...
and ended up flat on the floor because the seat had popped back.
And it was awful. No one said anything, no one laughed. My mother was sitting in a normal seat opposite, and refusing to make eye contact and trying not to start giggling. And eventually I just said to her "I don't know why you're pretending you don't know me, I only made a fool out of myself". Then someone at the back started laughing, and someone made a joke - and it was all much less horrible.
I don't mind being a fool, but when you're such a fool everyone finds it painful not funny...
My mother making a fool of herself
Years before I lived in Brighton we would go down for the day by train. This is a long time ago when they still had the trains with compartments opening off along a corridor. I must have been about 12, travelling with my mother and her friend.
My mother and her friend bought cups of coffee and I had a tin of coke. They made this huge deal out of giving it to me, how I had to be careful, how it was difficult to drink on a moving train, and I had to make absolutely sure I didn't spill any.
Then they started drinking. Then the train hit a bumpy patch.
I swear there was coffee dripping from the ceiling of the compartment. I didn't spill a drop of my drink and was just sat there staring at them --->
I think we were still laughing when we got there.
Celebrity drink spilling
It was also a train to Brighton where I saw one of ZZ Top spill hot coffee on his crotch. At the time I didn't know who he was, but did struggle not laughing.
My mother can be impressive sometimes
I wasn't there for this one - my mother and a friend got one of the old buses with a conductor. My mother got on and within a minute or so had remarked to her friend that the conductor seemed over stressed and in need of a break before he had a breakdown.
Half way through the journey he had a breakdown.
Someone made space for him to sit down, and he spent the rest of the journey sitting there crying.
The passengers took over the bus. They rang the bell to tell the driver to move. They didn't collect money, but they did tell people they couldn't stand on the platform with the door...
Apparently my mother's friend was impressed with my mother's prediction.
Bad passengers
Not sure anyone's worth a whole story, and there are so many.
There was the time on the tube I had my eyes closed listening to music and when I opened them everyone was staring at me. Then I realised they were staring at the man next to me who was talking to himself and holding a large kitchen knife he'd just taken out of it's packaging.
Luckily he then went on to take his new socks out of the packaging, which was much less scary.
There was a man on the bus who believed I was using my mobile to record him - rather to play soduko so I could ignore him.
I'm sure I'll think of more interesting ones.
Oh - I'm an idiot again
I can't believe I forgot this. It's another train to Brighton story too.
I got on the train to Brighton, and shortly before we left someone accompanied a blind man to the carriage and helped him aboard. Then they asked me if I was going to the last stop, and would I help him get off. I agreed.
At the last stop I went over and asked if he wanted help (because I was a bit embarrassed about them asking me to help without involving him at all). He did.
First he asked me to stand on his right, and I stood on the left. He only had one arm so that took a bit of sorting out.
Then I helped him walk down the platform. He held me arm and I looked really carefully to make sure where he was going.
Unfortunately I forgot to look where I was going. I was one step away from walking into a pole, and I had to ask the guy to shuffle over and explain that I was about to walk into something
He didn't seem to have the same confidence in me after that...
Victoria J
)
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