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Post by DT 11 on May 16, 2023 9:54:52 GMT
Indeed, and it will be interesting to see what impact ISA has on injuries and deaths from buses. My fear is that it will make little, if any, difference as bus drivers are professional drivers who arguably drive safely at a sensible speed. I could be wrong but I don't think there are many bus accidents involving TfL buses where injuries or death have resulted due to speed limits being broken. That might also have a significant impact on timekeeping especially of night buses. It is known that when the roads are clear buses will often travel at closer to 30mph than 20mph in 20mph limits in order to maintain or catch up time. Police seem to turn a blind eye as buses are driven by professionals who are invariably fighting the clock and doing their best against the odds. So long as the vehicle is being driven well and courteously there seems to be no action taken in regard to excess speed. I use the N22 on a fairly regular basis. Often inbound in the early hours (so one of the later journeys on that timetable). They start from Fulwell on time but will be late by Richmond if 20mph is adhered to. Then there's the guessing game as to how the driver will tackle the awkward mini-roundabout at Crown Road. Correctly it's all the way around to the left. Often it's straight over the bump and occasionally it's on the right-hand side of it. But never in a manner I (as a coach / bus licence holder and experienced driver) consider to be dangerous in the conditions. There's very little traffic around at 3 or 4am. What will eventually have to happen is extra buses added to PVR in the evening or more running time added. I have done the N2 & N137 and timetables reflect 20 MPH zones. I have said from the beginning when these silly 20 Zones began some roads would be more acceptable at a 25 MPH speed limit. I look forward to when the South Circular has more traffic when it is reduced to 20. 30 is a more dangerous speed and getting hit by that could be fatal.
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Post by vjaska on May 16, 2023 12:38:36 GMT
That might also have a significant impact on timekeeping especially of night buses. It is known that when the roads are clear buses will often travel at closer to 30mph than 20mph in 20mph limits in order to maintain or catch up time. Police seem to turn a blind eye as buses are driven by professionals who are invariably fighting the clock and doing their best against the odds. So long as the vehicle is being driven well and courteously there seems to be no action taken in regard to excess speed. I use the N22 on a fairly regular basis. Often inbound in the early hours (so one of the later journeys on that timetable). They start from Fulwell on time but will be late by Richmond if 20mph is adhered to. Then there's the guessing game as to how the driver will tackle the awkward mini-roundabout at Crown Road. Correctly it's all the way around to the left. Often it's straight over the bump and occasionally it's on the right-hand side of it. But never in a manner I (as a coach / bus licence holder and experienced driver) consider to be dangerous in the conditions. There's very little traffic around at 3 or 4am. What will eventually have to happen is extra buses added to PVR in the evening or more running time added. I have done the N2 & N137 and timetables reflect 20 MPH zones. I have said from the beginning when these silly 20 Zones began some roads would be more acceptable at a 25 MPH speed limit. I look forward to when the South Circular has more traffic when it is reduced to 20. 30 is a more dangerous speed and getting hit by that could be fatal. Of course but sadly because of the world we live in, fatalities will always be a thing and whilst obviously safety is a big priority, it can also be overdone like with 20mph limits and speed humps on inappropriate roads - all that money spent on wasteful infrastructure should of went on educating people on improving their driving standards which would achieve a similar result
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Post by capitalomnibus on May 16, 2023 21:59:48 GMT
Then perhaps emphasis should be placed on that. The recruitment ads that have been popping up in France emphasise this. For people who've been told all their life that bus driving is 'low skilled' it's not immediately obvious. While there is career progression depending on the company you work for it might not be something you particularly want to do, at Stagecoach went up to assistant garage supervisor which I applied for multiple times, I sort of enjoyed it but the rota was rubbish, 1 weekend off every 4 weeks wasn’t my idea of fun, I did do it for a year and sucked it up but ultimately I was offered something better at Ensign and I didn’t really lose money, at Ensign I was offered the same job but knowing what it entailed I declined, I was much happier just doing driving, towards the end I was offered a fixed job that I’d been after for a while, I throughly enjoyed that it left me open to opportunities that just wouldn’t normally happen, going from doing a early morning E rail in Southend to a film job in Twickenham in the same day, carrying approx 100 police officers round London during the queen’s funeral, reversing a bendy bus onto a low loader after driving it back from Brighton, helping out in the office and explaining to TfL that we can’t just magic up 20 buses at 6pm on a Friday evening that all need to be on tacho for a route that we’ve never done over 60 miles away which is also high risk due to various low bridges. That was something that I enjoyed but at Ensign there wasn’t much that was higher that I had any interest in, at Stagecoach I could never deal with that rota full time as a GS, I could apply to go on a management course but believe it or not in the long run it still would have been a pay cut and I think another problem would be is that I would find it hard to discipline someone for doing something I know that I’ve done in the past, I’m just not that sort of person, we all make mistakes at the end of the day, we are not perfect and while some mistakes are worse than others it’s what you learn from your mistakes that matters. Unless you have an insight into how it all works, the things I’ve known drivers get disciplinary meetings for is just ridiculous “Not stopping at a bus stop when out of service” and various other things along those lines that shouldn’t even be brought to the drivers attention yet are and in some cases given such a harsh punishment when they have done very little wrong is 100% a great way for them to have little enjoyment of the job, I’m not saying everyone deserves a break but I think most management need to know the drivers they have working for them and try to understand situations better, I had an accident which was 100% my fault and I fully admitted to it, when pulled in about it a while later, I was asked how I felt about it, I asked if they watched the CCTV they said no, if they had, they would have clearly seen how I felt about it, how can you bring someone in for something they have done and not check the CCTV when it’s available and working? Anyway I think you have to look at what you want to do before you even apply to drive buses, for me buses was a back up plan for an apprenticeship that never came to be, I honestly didn’t want to drive buses but I couldn’t stand being at college anymore, I applied for a laugh as they got back to me in like 45 mins if that, the money was good so I stayed but moved about about a lot as I get bored easily and the parking restrictions at Leyton were just an unnecessary restriction, I got to work at any garage I wanted, drove over 60 routes and drove every type of bus in the fleet at the time bar the mirror cam buses, I did enjoy it and thought being a supervisor was what I wanted to do, in reality it was a headache, I still enjoyed some aspects of it, 8 drivers not turning up one morning was not one them and this was pre Covid. Ensign was a way out but now I’m doing something completely different outside of the bus industry and I’m much happier, I’ve never had so much time off work, the career progression exists and there are roles that I hope to work towards, the working environment is really enjoyable and training is thorough and extensive. I really do not think any driver would have got a disciplinary for not stopping at a bus stop whilst out of service. One thing I always remember, you have to take what some other colleagues tell you with a pinch of salt, as sadly some would lie and tell others something different which is far from the reality. I have been at the end of other drivers lying to cover their back, whether it was accident damage and then blaming earlier drivers of the bus (me), or public complaints where more than one bus of the same route turned up at the same time and other drivers denied it was them. The worst case I had, was one driver called a woman a "f##kin p###y hole" over a pushchair incident and he denied it was him. As 3 buses turned up, they believed it was me then. In the end they got the right driver and he was disciplined with a 6 month caution. CCTV has also saved a lot of drivers from others lying to cover their backs. Some drivers do not bother to clear blinds to out of service which helps, then drive past bus stops fully blinded then passengers may not catch the destination and think it is in service. This ends up in complaints.
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Post by capitalomnibus on May 16, 2023 22:02:20 GMT
Re speed limits and PVR yes there are many examples where PVR has been altered and running time increased due to the imposition of 20mph speed limits. Most roads are controlled by the local London Borough not TfL; the latter only has control of the trunk road network and most of those roads are still 30mph outside the very centre of London. Boroughs are free to set their own standards which means constantly-changing rather than consistent limits. Crossing from one borough into the next the default limit can go up or down by 10mph. 20mph limits cause severe congestion. It is increasingly hard for motor traffic to overtake cyclists meaning everyone creeps along at the speed of the bike in front (they aren't all ridden by hares in lycra) until someone gets brave enough to dodge past. Buses by definition stop frequently. Every stop both slows the service speed and impacts overall road traffic speeds. BoJo might have been keen on us all walking but that will not save the London Bus as a species. Most bus journeys cannot be made reasonably by walking (or cycling) as he wished. Either due to the mobility of the passenger (or lack of it), the load they have with them (shopping, buggy or school bags) or simply the distance involved. Many bus passengers do not have access to a car as another option; in any case the bus should be seen as a means to reduce car use not as the option of last-resort. Passengers are abandoning buses in droves. It is faster by other means when one is available. A bus constrained to 20mph maximum will achieve an average of perhaps 7mph if it makes a typical number of stops. Horse-and-cart was faster. The padding in some schedules also means buses hang around for ages at stop after stop while iBus merrily plays that little recording telling us that "The driver has been instructed to wait ..... " In other words they are running early. Usually through no fault of their own but because of excessive padding. Speed the services up and passengers will return. I used an 11 between Victoria and Liverpool Street in its last week of operation which took above an hour; that section used to be about a half-hour but could be done in 15 - 20 minutes in the evening given a clear road. Increasing run times will not help night routes which are mostly on 30-minute headways now. Pad them out and you lose the even 30-minute headway or cut the stand times and risk late running. Adding another bus especially at night to the PVR is expensive. TfL are their own worst enemies but the Boroughs must play their part too. Other than on purely local residential roads all bus routes should be a 30mph limit (or more on those few sections where the limit is already above that). I'm preaching to the converted in here. It is TfL, the Mayor and the leaders of the London Boroughs who need to be told and forced to get London moving once again. You would be lucky, they would rather London grind to a halt.
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Post by capitalomnibus on May 16, 2023 22:04:24 GMT
Re speed limits and PVR yes there are many examples where PVR has been altered and running time increased due to the imposition of 20mph speed limits. Most roads are controlled by the local London Borough not TfL; the latter only has control of the trunk road network and most of those roads are still 30mph outside the very centre of London. Boroughs are free to set their own standards which means constantly-changing rather than consistent limits. Crossing from one borough into the next the default limit can go up or down by 10mph. 20mph limits cause severe congestion. It is increasingly hard for motor traffic to overtake cyclists meaning everyone creeps along at the speed of the bike in front (they aren't all ridden by hares in lycra) until someone gets brave enough to dodge past. Buses by definition stop frequently. Every stop both slows the service speed and impacts overall road traffic speeds. BoJo might have been keen on us all walking but that will not save the London Bus as a species. Most bus journeys cannot be made reasonably by walking (or cycling) as he wished. Either due to the mobility of the passenger (or lack of it), the load they have with them (shopping, buggy or school bags) or simply the distance involved. Many bus passengers do not have access to a car as another option; in any case the bus should be seen as a means to reduce car use not as the option of last-resort. Passengers are abandoning buses in droves. It is faster by other means when one is available. A bus constrained to 20mph maximum will achieve an average of perhaps 7mph if it makes a typical number of stops. Horse-and-cart was faster. The padding in some schedules also means buses hang around for ages at stop after stop while iBus merrily plays that little recording telling us that "The driver has been instructed to wait ..... " In other words they are running early. Usually through no fault of their own but because of excessive padding. Speed the services up and passengers will return. I used an 11 between Victoria and Liverpool Street in its last week of operation which took above an hour; that section used to be about a half-hour but could be done in 15 - 20 minutes in the evening given a clear road. Increasing run times will not help night routes which are mostly on 30-minute headways now. Pad them out and you lose the even 30-minute headway or cut the stand times and risk late running. Adding another bus especially at night to the PVR is expensive. TfL are their own worst enemies but the Boroughs must play their part too. Other than on purely local residential roads all bus routes should be a 30mph limit (or more on those few sections where the limit is already above that). I'm preaching to the converted in here. It is TfL, the Mayor and the leaders of the London Boroughs who need to be told and forced to get London moving once again. I feel that a 30mph speed limit should be enforced again in most areas that are currently 20. Traffic levels are pretty bad in the day and in my part of London traffic constantly builds up on most stretches of Uxbridge Road in the borough of Ealing where it is 20mph. In most cases it will be quicker to take a train and if you have a rail card cheaper if you're avoiding zone 1. The problem is, most of the areas they have 30, it is hard to even achieve that in the peaks, because of so much roadworks, cyclists, side roads closed etc. It is mostly out of the peaks it is able to be done, sometimes it still is not on some roads. I see it as nothing but another stealth tax.
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Post by rogerout on May 23, 2023 22:20:50 GMT
I think one of the main problems now is that the job is incentivised as a quick way to make money and so many people just don’t care about the job they are doing or take pride in any of it, the way you are treated by the public, management and controllers can easily get too much for people and in other industries wouldn’t be tolerated. I’ve just spoken to someone working in an office up London only on about £33k that gets 3 well-being hours a week to take off their normal working hours which are also flexible Even with the money being paid which to a degree isn’t great, the lack of proper training and proper driving assessments just aren’t at the level they need to be at for the majority of people to drive in a professional manner. The shocking lack of familiarity some drivers have about the vehicles they are driving for up to 10 hours a day really concerns me, I’ve seen staff notices while I was at Stagecoach explaining how to operate the heating controls on an Enviro, the mind boggles, but moving into more concerning things, ferry lift. Ferry lift is a feature that raises the suspension of the bus and allows it to have greater ground clearance, this has got me out of so many sticky situations and has prevented damage being caused to the bus yet I bet 75% of drivers don’t know what it is, how to operate it or have the forward thinking to use it when needed and end up damaging panels/components unnecessarily. The thing with driving assessments that really bothers me is that some of them carried out by TfL don’t even last for 10mins, in 10 mins what are you really judging? Another issue regardless of how you drive, professionally or unprofessionally, fast or slow, calm or aggressive, ultimately you are paid the same and lot of people see that as why bother doing the job properly and start messing about without a care for the people that are trying to or have to put up with the service. As much as some people will say it’s a nightmare driving up London with all the cyclists and other idiots in the road, spend a good few weeks doing various rail replacement routes outside of London for Southern and Southeastern, that can be a real nightmare, having low trees that will smash the blind glass out of a single decker, blind bends that you need to completely occupy the other lane to make the turn, camber where the bus will ground out if you take the corner at the wrong angle/have a full bus/don’t use ferry lift, the list of challenges doing rail is far worse that service driving in London. I don’t think many people enjoy the job anymore but I wouldn’t say that going to HGV’s is much different, depending on the work you do it can be just as bad and thankless I’m a bus driver. I’ve left the industry twice and came back to it. Worked in London and outside. With driving standards, well you have to pass a driving assessment to get the job, even with a license. Secret assessments are randomly conducted within TFL by AA tech I believe they are called. The companies also put out their trainers, to assess drivers. Obviously there are lots of bus drivers and there’s only so many driving assessments that can be done on drivers. Secondly, bus drivers have in facing cab cameras ( which many truck drivers have argued against for privacy reasons) cctv in the buses and a telematics system. Bus drivers are very heavily scrutinised. What other industry would really treat their employees like this and get away with it? Bus drivers work anti social hours, are treat badly by pretty much everyone and sometimes have to work for many hours without having access to toilets. Again , what other industries would treat their staff like that? And yet we’re trying to encourage people to become bus drivers, and stay in the job. Thirdly, I’ve been a HGV driver and there are good and bad parts to the job. I know some drivers who work Mon - Friday and are home every night. It’s also worth noting that most hgv drivers are generally better paid than bus drivers and have a bit more freedom in when they can take breaks, what route they want to go etc etc.. They are also not assessed as much as bus drivers. I’ve heard that some drivers have literally turned up to work and being given a set of keys and told , there’s your truck of you go. HGV driving is really quite different to bus driving and most people who leave the buses to go truck driving prefer it.
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Post by gwiwer on May 24, 2023 16:29:03 GMT
Ex-bus driver here too.
This was pre-Driver CPC when we had a number of (to put it politely) wayward colleagues whose customer service was non-existent, whose right feet were full of lead, who felt the only way to operate the pedals was to ram them hard to the floor and whose regard for other road-users was scant to say the least. One had their employment terminated after failing to pay in for seven days in a row. You guess the reason; it's a poorly-paid and thankless job but you don't take from the hand that feeds you. Another had the genuine misfortune to have been driving his own car late one night, came across an RTC and stopped to offer assistance and was then breath-tested when the police turned up. He was in no way involved with the RTC but lost his licence for having far too much alcohol on board. And he lost his job with it.
I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the driving side of the job (which was not in London) but not the way we were treated. Undue pressure placed upon us daily to cover shortfalls in staff with "just one more trip, please" (which could be an extra 3 hours in a duty) or the "mandatory" rest-day working which was never in the contract but they made your life much less pleasant if you didn't agree to it. Woe betide if you accepted a job that RTA'd you; that was your responsibility to keep track of. Two different depots didn't have each other's records so one would call you and press you to work a rest day which you had, by law, to take simply because they didn't know you were RTA'd. And then they got nasty when you refused it.
We were monitored by senior staff patrolling bus stations and traditional ticket inspections on the road. An inspector could inspect anything they wished from the cash in your tray to the shine on your shoes. Most only carried out a ticket check. The traditional thumbs-down signal from an approaching driver warned you someone was just around the corner .....
Working in and out of local towns we seldom went more than two hours without access to a toilet. You learned quickly where and when you had to hold on and where, in emergency, you could nip behind a hedge at a remote terminal.
My driving assessment was a 20-minute trip around the block with the company driving instructor. After that I was straight into route-learning and company procedures. Five days later I was, apparently "fully route-learned" and out on my own though with a pilot as route guide (a semi-retired driver who knew the rounds but no longer drove commercially) on a couple of the more convoluted around-the-houses trips the first few times where going astray was easy.
I could do it again if age wasn't against me. No-one will put me through DCPC now and most major operators will not take anyone of my age. I left the job because we emigrated overseas rather than for any reason connected with driving buses itself.
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Post by gwiwer on Jul 21, 2023 13:49:35 GMT
I haven't encountered very many harsh drivers since DCPC was introduced. That has had a positive effect upon driving standards generally. Until today when, obliged by the rail disputes to reach work by alternative means, I encountered a lead-booted driver of the old school on the 337. Neither pedal on the floor seemed to respond unless jabbed abruptly to the floor. Speed bumps were treated as launching ramps. More than the usual number of trees were clipped, and harder. More than one fellow passenger made comment about the rough ride and of their preference to leave the vehicle through the door not via the front window. A TfL feedback e-form has been submitted via their app.
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