Battle with the Bike

They say driving a bus is one of the most stressful jobs in the country. Some psychologists put together a matrix that showed the higher your responsibility and the lower your control at your job, the more stressed you were. Bus drivers have a lot of responsibility, they have to keep a few 1000 people safe every day as they drive them around. But they have very little control over their job as the route and the time they have to get around is all dictated by a transit planner. So I was not surprised to see the bus driver go off the other day when someone defied his one little piece of control, the yield sign. I was surprised however that it was a cyclist that was ready to get into a fight with the bus.

When the bus signals that he is leaving the bus stop there is a yield sign that flashes. The law says you must stop and let him out. The other day a cyclist did what most cars do and ignored the yield sign, trying to get around the bus before he could leave. When the bus pulled out the cyclist smacked the bus and yelled at the driver. Usually that is the end of the story, however in a 20 year bus riding first I saw the bus driver stop the bus and go off on the cyclist about how she had broken the law and almost got herself killed. I have to say I was totally with the driver on this one. Too many cyclists disobey traffic laws and then get pissed at drivers when they almost get killed. Today I saw the same cyclist pull up behind the bus and stop. Hopefully she has learned a lesson.