On The Bus

[Magpie]

So the buses in your new city have a different way of opening the doors do you

a) try to figure out the somewhat poorly-worded instructions?
b)give up and apologise to the driver when you exit the front door?
c)yell "back door" despite the light being on, hit the door a few times (ignoring a very clear "do not push"), and then act like the driver is an idiot for you not being able to open the door as you insult him on your way out?



Yes, I agree that the guy might have been illiterate, but there isn't really an excuse for c). I really HATE people who push on the doors, because they have broken pretty much every single bus door in Toronto, and I don't want that to happen here.

[ShadowTiger]

Hell, here in New York, I wish they would push on the doors. At least they're doing something besides yelling "BACK DOOR! BACK DOOR! HEY F|_|(|<WIT UP THERE, BACK DOOOOOOR!!!"

I mean for the love of god, you were standing right behind someone who pushed on the doors to open them when the light went off, and you were staring out the same window they were. Surely the mental image would have seeped into your fetid daydreams while you were standing there?

[fireheart]

We get that down in Ausland too.

Although, there are three different systems of doors and variants of those:

-manual double doors that are sealed while the bus is in motion and when the green light comes on, you OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!!! (surprisingly, the younger generation don't have issues with it...)
-single doors that are opened by the driver.
-double doors that are opened by the driver.

The latter two usually result in people screaming "back door", other passengers joining in, then when the front door closes and the bus begins to move off, swearing. Nobody pushes on the doors. Much.

[Magpie]

We have two main kinds of back doors here - one is light beam that you have to put your hand in front of (the one that prompted this). The instructions show a hand in a circle and say "Wave hand here. Do not push on doors." The problem with these is that if they don't open people (and I did this once upon a time) just wave their hand back and forth. What you need to do is just hold it there, move it up and down if there's a problem. Waving it back and forth makes it worse.

We also have buses with push bars. The trick to these is to push the bars and then the doors open. You do not push the doors open. The bars have a sensor. Unfortunately, if you're in Toronto, the doors are so slow that no one realises that they're going to open (and/or no one has the patience to wait for them) so everyone forces the doors open all the way.

I grew up with the non-accessible buses, where you step on the step at the back to exit the bus. So I was amused when I got on one of those here, and everyone would stand at the top (above the weight sensor on the step) and wave/tap at the doors to try and open the doors. I'm not sure that there were instructions at all...

[Andara Bledin]

I like the way the local buses here work. They have sensor strips for signalling that you want the net stop, and a more-sensitive type of sensor strip to get the back doors to open. You touch it, wait about a second, and the doors open.

The larger area buses have the push bars type, where you push on the door bar, and the doors open due to the pressure. But again, there's that second of waiting while the sensor triggers. It's that wait that people can't manage.

^-.-^

[Ironclad Alibi]

I wonder if the people having the door problems should be riding the short bus?

[Darkforge]

Wow, in England we just have buses with a set of doors at the front next to the driver, and the driver opens/closes those door when they want to, no back doors, or push doors etc

[Andara Bledin]

Not only do our buses have a back set of doors, but some of them even have a third set of doors even further back.

Behold!

^-.-^

[BeeMused]

And here's one with 4 doors!
XXL Bus

[RestaurantDude]

And here's one with 4 doors!
XXL Bus

Bloody hell! That's massive!

[Magpie]

I haven't seen articulated buses since I was a little kid. I think Toronto got rid of them, and I doubt they ever had them here.

[greek_jester]

Not only do our buses have a back set of doors, but some of them even have a third set of doors even further back.

Behold!

^-.-^

Ah, bendy buses, that some pillock thought would be a good idea in the cramped streets of central London. With their tendency to catch fire, the drivers who don't give a damn going half-way through a box junction & sitting there through several changes of the lights until someone lets them in, plus the repeated mounting of pavements while going around corners & damaging of people/property when they do, they've done more to increase congestion in central London than any other vehicle. May their champion be tied to a stake & set alight!

[Sparky]

I was a bus driver for 18 years. We had several kinds of buses. We had hundreds of kinds of SPs (sucky passengers). One bus had doors you pushed when the light came on. Passengers would stand on the steps and give me blank looks. I'd yell "push!" Another bus had a back door that would open when you stepped on the top step. Passengers would stand in front of the door but not step down. Some would bend over and rattle the doors while not stepping down. One time I yelled "Step down on the step" -- I had to yell loud or they couldn't hear me over the bus noises -- and the woman jumped into a seat and looked scared. She managed to hear "step down on the step" as "sit down in the seat." She wasn't sucky though, and laughed when I explained.

The best story was in my earliest years when we had only 19-seat buses. These were really designed as airport shuttles or something, but they were all the city had when they started the company. Being so small, they only had one door. So I stopped one time, and this idiot woman stood up and cried "There's no back door!" We all agreed that this was true. "How do we get out?!" she wailed. I suggested she might like to use the front door.

[Magpie]

The best story was in my earliest years when we had only 19-seat buses. These were really designed as airport shuttles or something, but they were all the city had when they started the company. Being so small, they only had one door. So I stopped one time, and this idiot woman stood up and cried "There's no back door!" We all agreed that this was true. "How do we get out?!" she wailed. I suggested she might like to use the front door.

Yes, she was an idiot. At least she was trying to exercise bus courtesy? Although how she figured out that that's what you're supposed to do on buses is beyond me.