Brightly coloured buses in Mansfield.

[arrivaarriva]

But does anyone know what happened at 1.27?  Crunch!

[snoggle]

Obviously I can't know as I've never been to Mansfield. My guess is that the driver of the bus whose left hand wing mirror hit the video camera was trying to teach the photographer a lesson by swinging far too widely out of the bus station. Given the view shown later in the video I suspect the bus may have clipped the wall / fencing.

Quite why a driver felt it remotely necessary to swing that far out is beyond me. The photographer was quite clearly in a public area behind a strong metal fence so was doing nothing wrong at all (I've checked on Streetview). Almost all the buses managed to turn out of the bus station without getting close to the fence / wall.

The bus station in Derby is to a similar design as that at Mansfield one with buses leaving at one end and swinging out. There's no fence to stand behind there but I've never experienced the apparent antics in that Mansfield video whilst taking photos in Derby. Clearly if there is no fence you do have to pay attention as to where you stand in case a bus does get very close. After years of being in and around bus stations I am aware of those risks and especially from wing mirrors on arms. However I doubt I'd be paying quite as much attention if I was corralled behind a fence as you'd naturally assume this was a place of safety where no part of a vehicle could touch you if the vehicle was being driven properly.

[sid]

It looks like either some pretty inept driving or the driver just being deliberately stupid? Either way I should think his employers will be aware of it and he'll have been summonsed to the office.

[snoggle]

By a sheer fluke one of the people I follow on Flickr has put up some photos of Mansfield bus station. This photo shows the area where the person taking the video would have stood. It also shows a bus with quite a tight turn. It looks to me as if it is possible in some circumstances for a wing mirror to get very close to someone standing near the railings or to touch them if a person was leaning over. Seems a rather daft design to me.

Photo credit - Clive Brown.