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Did
you learn to drive on the dodgems? |
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| With a high turnover
of staff, many conductors trained as drivers
as soon as they were old enough at twenty-one.
Since many of these had never driven a car
let alone a bus the number of bumps and scrapes
was pretty high. It was the conductor's job
to exchange details and get witnesses. After
one accident I had two lists of 'eye witnesses',
one for those who saw the other vehicle come
from the left, one for those who saw it come
from the right! |
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| I
worked with one driver on his first week after
passing his driving test. On the Monday, with
a bigger bus than the one he had learned on,
we clipped a wall. I picked up all the debris
I could find and put the slab straight on
the top, but I left a piece of black mudguard
behind and we got reported. The second time
I worked with him, on the Tuesday we knocked
a cyclist off his bicycle. The third week
we should have had an accident on the Wednesday
but it was early closing day so we went without.
The fourth week we got all the way through
a late turn on the Thursday, I got off at
the bus station and congratulated the driver
for breaking the jinx. He drove the bus to
the garage, collected the bus to take the
staff home - and knocked down a lamp post. |
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| Fortunately most accidents
were not our fault. In The Avenue one day,
the driver of a Hillman Imp tried to turn
left, right through the middle of the bus.
He claimed we were to blame as he had signalled.
He insisted on calling the police, they arrived,
he got done for having no tax disc. Another
time my bus was hit in the middle of the nearside
by a car which stuck its nose too far out
of a side road. The car driver said we had
pulled into the road to hit him. |
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| Of course drivers were
not the only ones to have accidents, conductors
could too. When I was at Winchester it was
common practice early in the morning for conductors
to bring the buses out of the garage onto
the bus station stands. One conductor, driving
a semi-automatic for the first time, hit the
depot superintendents office. My contribution
was purely passive. Faced with a new type
of bus, my driver remarked that there was
no hand brake. I spotted a blue lever sticking
out from the steering column and suggested
this might be it. The driver released the
handle and drove a brand new bus into the
railings. |
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| Any injury to a passenger
was classed as an accident and the conductor
would have to fill in a report. Mostly these
were minor slips or trips. I did have one
serious incident during an industrial dispute.
We had been instructed by the union not to
carry standing passengers. Knowing there was
one seat left upstairs, I picked up a passenger
and rang the bell. The passenger climbed the
stairs but stopped at the top, unable to see
the vacant seat. As we turned a corner, she
fell backwards down the stairs. I phoned for
an ambulance and found myself being charged
by a policewoman over the incident. A union
representative asked me to plead guilty so
that they could argue against the new 'standee'
buses with less seats, but the charge was
dropped. |
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