An honest bus driver

[cosmolinguist]

I was sent to Coventry today for work.

When I wanted to get a bus from Warwick University (no I don't know why that's in Coventry either) back to the train station, I went to the bus with the most people standing around it trying to get on and found the driver out there too, on a smoke break.

After ascertaining that this was the correct bus (Me: "Does this go to the train station?" Driver: :big sigh: "Eventually, but with all these roadworks it takes ages!" Sounds like a you-problem, buddy!), I remembered just in time that a lot of buses are more advanced than these we get Oop North, so I added a new question before my usual question to bus drivers when I'm going somewhere unfamiliar. "Do these buses have audio announcements?"

He looked at me pensively and said, "You know, I don't know if they do!"

That was not an answer I was expecting. In a work context, I'm aware of the problems created for visually impaired people by drivers who can turn the announcements off, or turn them down so far as to be useless, because the drivers get irritated listening to them all day. I did not heretofore know that it was possible for a driver to not know whether their bus had this functionality one way or the other!

And of course it wouldn't be great that he was so uninterested in the topic! Even seeing me standing there with my white cane, having been lead there by one of the people I'd been meeting with who said she wasn't going to leave until I got on the bus (big mom-vibes, bless), he didn't seem so much as sheepish that he didn't know about this important accessibility feature.

So I moved on to the question I am used to asking bus drivers when I am going somewhere unfamiliar: "Can you let me know when we get to that stop?"

In Manchester, the drivers usually just grunt at you. ("Or lie," V said when I later regaled them with this story. It is an accurate addition; they do lie because sometimes they say they will do this.) This guy said something like "Yeah! I can do that. If I remember..."

It was extremely clear that he was going to forget by the time I got on the bus.

Which I immediately did. At least I knew where I stood with this guy!

A combination of Citymapper, watching and following the biggest group of people off the bus, and the huge Double Arrow over the doors of the station, I was able to find it fine.

And I proceeded to have absolutely no passenger assistance despite having booked it. I was shown the platform by exactly the kind of bored/helpful/keen/friends with grown-ups teenager that I used to be, and I had to push on to a crowded train myself and try to find a seat myself, which I detest doing and avoiding which is one of the main reasons I rely on passenger assistance.

I'd rather have an honest bus driver tell me he'll forget to help me than a dishonest app tell me that my assistance booking has been confirmed and then show up to nothing at all.