not the driver's fault

Usually when I post crossly about buses, it is because of what the driver has done. Of course, drivers are human and humans are usually bad but drivers are not always bad. This time the driver was very apologetic and friendly about the bureaucracy he had been subject to and it wasn't his fault at all.

Consider a bus, in a rural area where they can't easily put a replacement on, that suffers a big delay from a breakdown, but eventually manages to limp to its outer destination. It arrives there in time to turn round and operate a return service on time. But it doesn't. Why? the driver is not allowed to. The situation has caught up with the rules about his driving hours. he is forced to take a half hour break and sit twiddling his thumbs, even thought it means the bus will run half an hour late, and passengers will be half an hour late and miss connections event though the bus was physically there in time to run on time. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This actually happened this week on the Carse of Stirling services by First bus.

This may be health and safety, from the point of view of regulating the driving. But what use is that if passengers' coping safety is affected by having their day's plan and connection knocked out. As encountered on meet-ups, some aspies do get bewildered in unfamiliar places. The power to run transport late and not to make passengers immune from the consequences for further transport, is still an issue of power and that's why no health and safety rules get made out of that. Like, having to employ more staff so that buses can't get trapped at the outer end of routes and forced to do a silly delay like this.

Maurice Frank