u tink a bus driver's job very easy izzit? BC oso hav to ensure
the pax safety leh. if the bus kena accident and got pax injured,
they might be held responsible too. my friend ytd met a very great
problem on his first trip on 912. onli done the first half trip and
reached the int at Berth 12, all 3 doors can't open! front door
onli opened a little hole, and my poor friend had to squeeze out of
the door and use the emergency cock to activate the rear doors! in
the end, he declared off svc and drove back to depot, after which
going back home for split break. in the afternoon, when i met him
again, he was driving another bus liao. after split break, he told
me, he did another few trips to compensate for the time lost in the
morning, including the other 1/2 trip that he did not complete. and
on one day, when TIB808U cameoed on 960 and he happened to cameo on
that bus, he cleaned the bus so clean when resting at the int that
an auntie kissed the bus! although he complains to me sometimes abt
the poor performances of particular buses, he also praised about
the ex buses that he had drove, one of which was TIB667J which was
his perm S-shift bus on 75 when he first joined the then TIBS.
anyway, the bus that brokedown happened to be TIB1041H. my friend
later drove TIB1043C, most likely TIB981B replacing its slot on
960.
I once heard from BCs that they love to drive Mercedes because
of their good pickup and although Lances are ok, some don't like to
drive them as some of the Lances have a very slow pickup especially
on services like 167 and 171.
At least SBS and SMRT tried their best to recruit BCs. You have
no right to say 'ALOT of train drivers and ALOT of taxi drivers'.
Because they both have their pros and cons. For taxis, you have to
bear the cost of rental fees, petrol and minor servicing. For
trains, I have a friend working as SMRT TO and he earns less than
$2000 a month and their start-up salary is not well. Buses is a
different thing altogether. If you want to say, they dun
care of Bus Drivers, then who are we now? Without them,
there's no bus and when there's no bus, there's no us, even this
forum would have not been created without us. That is cause and
effect.
