Bus Driver Muppet

The report blaims the bus driver and I suppose as the parked cars are on his side of the road, he should've waited for the road to be clear ! But from one of those pictures, the car driver had loads of space to move over.

Just shows how bad driving has become of the UKs roads - more speed cameras I say

I take you're not a driver then?

The problem isn't with speed cameras per se.
The problem is that the limits that they are enforcing are frequently (although not always) poorly signed and/or inappropriate. It has been proved time and time again, around the world, that in the vast majority of cases that speed limits should be set to the 85th percentile speed. That is the speed that 85% of drivers to do not exceed. Drivers that exceed the 90th percentile speed should be the ones prosecuted, as these are the most dangerous drivers.

Since the advent of speed cameras in the UK, the speed limits have been changed for political reasons, to make more money from speed cameras, and a variety of other reasons.
This means that speed limits in a lot of cases do not bear any relation to the maximum speed at which it is safest to go, and if you do not know the road there is no way of telling which it is. So drivers that know the road drive at the speed it is safe to drive it at, while those that don't drive to the speed limit. This conflict in speeds leads to accidents. It also leads to drivers getting so used to ignoring speed limits that they have accidents when they come across a speed limit that is actually protecting an unseen hazard or deceptive bend, etc.

When drivers encounter a speed limit that is set too low or too high they ignore it and drive to the conditions the road and other environmental conditions tell them is safe. When the limit is too low, it means that large numbers of people break the speed limit, the majority of them are driving safely. The rules for placement of speed cameras dictate that only in places where large numbers of people break the limit can there be a camera. What happens now is that drivers who know the road slow down for the speed camera, but return to their normal speed either side of it. This means that although the stretch of road with the camera markings on is safer, the road either side of it becomes more dangerous through people breaking sharply, and accelerating quickly.

Another phenomenon this leads to, particularly when drivers do not know the road, is that the drivers spend more time looking at the speedo than looking at the road. Obviously this means that they are less aware of their surroundings and potential hazards - such as a child running into the road for example.

Where the speed limit is set too high, the majority of drivers ignore it, but this is safe because they are driving slower and it is not normally a problem. However speed cameras (even if they were placed in this situation, which they legally cannot be) would not be able to catch the drivers that do go too fast because they are not exceeding the speed limit.

The only time that speed cameras provide a positive contribution to road safety is when they are placed to catch the few drivers that exceed a correctly set speed limit. These are the drivers that are unsafe and should be prosecuted. There exist a few cameras in the country in these situations, but AIUI it is not legal to place new ones here, because not enough drivers exceed the speed limit to meet the criteria.

Additionally to all this, speed cameras can only detect drivers that exceed the speed limit. They can not detect
Drunk driving
Reckless driving
driving while using a mobile phone
driving without due care and attention
driving without wearing a seatbelt
driving too slowly
obstructions
unsecured loads (except occasionally by chance, as flapping tarpaulins/rope can trigger the camera but as the pictures are not processed for up to a couple of weeks later they are useless for road safety in this regard)
dangerous overtaking
unsafe vehicles
bald tyres
driving without lights / with insufficient lights (e.g. blown bulbs)
badly adjusted headlights dazzling oncoming drivers
traffic in the wrong lane (e.g. cars in a bus lane)
Driving without insurance/MOT

or any of many other motoring offences, many of them being a much greater hazard to road safety than speeding. All of them however can be detected, and dealt with appropriately, by trained police officers - who can (and do) use their discretion in dealing with anything they find. Oh, but they are more expensive than a speed camera? Can't have them then

Unless you are a driver you cannot appreciate just how varied the standard of signing speed limits (and other things as well) is in this country. You also cannot appreciate that a good, experienced driver can tell in the majority of cases what is a safe speed and what is not. Speed limits should be a guide to younger/newer drivers who have less experience of judging what is safe (and >90% of it is experience, for which there is no substitute) and those who do not know the road. Because the link between safe maximum speed and speed limits has been broken this guide no longer exists, and drivers can no longer trust speed limits. To regain this trust, first the speed limits need to be changed so the link is restored, then they have to remain this way for a long time - quite possibly it will take until those drivers who grew up with the sensible speed limits (and I mean from the time they started to pay attention to speed limits, not just when they learn to drive) significantly outnumber those drivers whose trust was lost/never gained. It might even take until the following generation are the majority of the drivers.

The road in question usually has cars parked along one side of it, quite legally as there is plenty of room. I have driven buses along here many times and passed cars with no bother at all. Looking at the photos, there was room, but only just. I'd have gone for it and given the car driver a scare - having driven buses in Guernsey, I know what will or won't go!

Generally, when drivers start to go and the car driver gets scared, he manages to reverse.

One route goes all around the backstreets of Cantley - can be a very tight squeeze at times, the driver who usually does it is one of the most experienced at Doncaster, and sails through like it's nothing - when a replacement does it, it takes twice as long.

ROFL

Hmm... yes, it may be forbidden from happening, but that isn't to say it doesn't.

Like other laws. I was merely making the point that, some drivers will happily come out with "I can't get out of my cab with passengers on", yet they will happily leave a busful of passengers unattended and wander off because their relief hasn't turned up.

All Entirely valid.



We have one of them too! It has to be specially authorised by the Traffic Commissioners where there is absolutely no alternative to the reverse, and then there are various other hoops to go through, not least of which is persuading the union is is safe, and also that there are all adequate safeguards in place. BTW, even with all this protection the drivers STILL hate such moves.

I feel the need to endorse both of Phil's posts there too !

I hope First do nothing at all to the driver in that news report. Quiet apart from the difficulty and legality in reversing buses, the bus has a queue of vehicles behind it, which the car does not. The clearance for the bus looks marginal to me !

I have encountered the situation numerous times where you pull into a long single clearance column which is clear when you enter, then some moron pulls in at the other end, it is apparant you can not pass, so you keep going and stop head to head and shrug at the idiot ! Where I live this happens daily at school times, mums parked (legally) block a main road to 300 yards with no passing place, a bus can not pass another vehicle, and the road gets blocked up with several miles of queuing traffic by buses waiting at one end for someone to let them through ...usually another bus. At the other side of the school the road is wider and parked cars would not cause the obstruction, but there are double yellow lines there because the London Borough of Havering are stupid !

The first thing that springs to mind is that the turning circle may either be not quite big enough, or may be private land, the owner of which does not want buses on it.

Not on the public highway, but at the student village in Swansea the buses have to do a three point turn. Some drivers will let the passengers off before doing the move, others will do the move with them on, regardless of whether the bus is a near empty 49 seater single decker or a full and standing (and sometimes overfull) double 89 seat ancient double decker.

Probably. In the 28 years between me driving buses, all the reverse-turn ends of journeys have been replaced by excursions round housing estates etc. Apart from the odd bus station. It's undoubtedly safer, though going through some of the estates with cars parked in the evenings is an excitement (not!) in itself. The problem is the tolerance of other motorists - we still have one reverse turn (Uley Church for the benefit of TRC666!), where previously we took pride in staying on one side of the road. Now, the only way of doing it is to pull diagonally across the road blocking both sides - if you don't, nobody gives you enough room to reverse out of the way. This of course is an empty bus manoeuvre.

However, once the rest of the traffic lights are fitted with bus-priority transponders (we have a few and they're brilliant!), and more bus lanes are put in, eventually the penny will drop that bus travel into towns is less stressful than taking (and parking) the car. Trust me, it IS starting to happen when the bus fare to town is £1.20 return and parking is £2 min: even families are beginning to see the light in our area.

I used to drive part time for a small firm in Northampton which operated a few tendered rural routes, one of them had a reverse turn into a side road at Astcote, near Towcester, I used to pride myself on being able to do it without touching the brake pedal, as points 1 and 2 faced up a slight hill! Just as well, because Leyland leopard brakes make an awful sound in reverse.

Ah, the 4 a day each way on the 20! The rest of them terminate at Stonehouse or Dursley. Has the 20 got Solos yet?

I was thinking of the 40 at Wotton because I have seen them reverse on to the stop after coming off the roundabout coming in from Stroud, this was done with passengers onboard.