Watch the curb
While we hum the refrain from “The Passenger”, the group of people that are on the bus don’t have many choices. We are all backseat drivers, with no control over how or when we actually arrive at our destination. Take today, where both my morning and evening drivers managed to hit the curb while navigating a curve.
No big deal, usually. City bus wheels are bigger than those on your family van. This morning we just heard the noise; no big deal. This afternoon the results were a bit more spectacular. It seemed like such a minor nudge in the greater scheme of things, but within the next two minutes our bus failed. The front wheel locked, we shook and the driver was forced to align his vehicle with the shoulder as rush hour traffic rushed by (for a change). Caught on the downward slope of a city freeway. And the fifty backseat drivers knew we weren’t going to get home any earlier this afternoon.
The bus driver was stoic, when he told us that they were going to send us a new vehicle. As a minor detail, our current (broken) bus was part of the 2008 purchase, which meant that he’d managed to immobilize a $450,000 rig with who knows how much damage to the steering assembly. Cars continued to rush by, and we continued to sit quietly. At one point, a false alarm when someone heard another bus slowing and the horde headed for the exits. A practice, only.
Give credit to the transit corporation, because we had another vehicle within twenty minutes, and we all made it home for supper. No injuries, other than the driver’s ego (the mechanic did point out that this was a brand new bus, with the factory odour barely diminished).
