Traffic disruption and the Proms

[Bryn]

The simple fact is that motor vehicles - even quite small ones - can do far more damage to a cyclist than the cyclist can do to the motor vehicle or its driver. Drivers need to keep this in mind and operate their vehicle in a way that doesn't put other road users at risk - far too many don't. And I include bus drivers in this - I'm afraid Bryn, your own example not withstanding, that bus drivers are no angels. (In Glasgow I believe that elderly people are far more at risk of injury from poor driving while travelling in the bus than they are from cyclists while walking on the pavement. Bus drivers seem to be having a competition to see how many people - not just elderly - they can get on the floor of their bus)

Oh I can identify with that experience. I am not here to defend poor driving standards. I know too many bus drivers, and their managers, who put the timetable ahead of their prime statutory concern, the safety and comfort of their passengers. Fortunately the operator of the local bus service I most use impresses on its drivers the need to wait for passengers seated (if seats are available) before moving off. In London the situation is very different. There, bus companies get financially penalised by TfL if they fall behind schedule. Drivers are under pressure from their controllers to move off as quickly as possible.

I would just add that from next month, all Bus and Coach drivers in the UK must hold a Driver Qualification Card, having complete 35 hours of Certificate of Professional Competence training:

http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/obtaining-your-driver-certificate-of-professional-competence

This is in addition to their standard Passenger Carrying Vehicle Driving Licence.

I hear rumours that many bus companies are well behind with their training schedule, if they have one. October could be an interesting month for buses and coaches. No DQC, no work. Mine expires in 2019. Perhaps this may be difficult to believe, but the CPC/DQC training involves no behind the wheel assessment, just unassessed attendance at five 7-hour 'classroom' sessions. I kid you not.

[amateur51]

Oh I can identify with that experience. I am not here to defend poor driving standards. I know too many bus drivers, and their managers, who put the timetable ahead of their prime statutory concern, the safety and comfort of their passengers. Fortunately the operator of the local bus service I most use impresses on its drivers the need to wait for passengers seated (if seats are available) before moving off. In London the situation is very different. There, bus companies get financially penalised by TfL if they fall behind schedule. Drivers are under pressure from their controllers to move off as quickly as possible.

London bus drivers stand alongside nurses as my local heroes. They are paid a small fraction of their Underground comparators' salary and have a much more difficult and wearing job.

But they have a number of operators to deal with and they don't have Bob Crow

[Flosshilde]

Oh I can identify with that experience. I am not here to defend poor driving standards. I know too many bus drivers, and their managers, who put the timetable ahead of their prime statutory concern, the safety and comfort of their passengers. Fortunately the operator of the local bus service I most use impresses on its drivers the need to wait for passengers seated (if seats are available) before moving off. In London the situation is very different. There, bus companies get financially penalised by TfL if they fall behind schedule. Drivers are under pressure from their controllers to move off as quickly as possible.

I wouldn't want to imply that all bus drivers are dreadful, & I'm sure that it's the companies at fault - both for putting drivers under pressure & not training them properly. Glasgow's main company (one that rhymes with 'Worst') is pretty bad, but there's a two-horse (or two-bus) company that offers white-knuckle rides into town. & then there's the strange Glasgow habit of getting up & going to the exit doors well before the bus reaches the stop (sometimes even when it's just left the stop before), which doesn't help passenger safety. I'm always amazed when I visit my mother in Oxfordshire that people wait until the bus actually stops before they leave their seat!

[Dave2002]

I wouldn't want to imply that all bus drivers are dreadful, & I'm sure that it's the companies at fault - both for putting drivers under pressure & not training them properly. Glasgow's main company (one that rhymes with 'Worst') is pretty bad, but there's a two-horse (or two-bus) company that offers white-knuckle rides into town. & then there's the strange Glasgow habit of getting up & going to the exit doors well before the bus reaches the stop (sometimes even when it's just left the stop before), which doesn't help passenger safety. I'm always amazed when I visit my mother in Oxfordshire that people wait until the bus actually stops before they leave their seat!

In an earlier life I worked for a few months as a conductor. There was one driver who drove so fast that he always started the route late, and got back to the depot early. He also seemed hell bent on checking the stability of the vehicle - which he did on many occasions. Once I forgot the route, and was horrified when we were hurtling along a main road to realise that he needed to take a right angled turn off down a side road a few yards ahead. He did it anyway, and hardly slowed down. I can't remember whether there were any passengers on board, but I was terrified. On the other hand there was another driver who was very slow, and kept pretty strictly to the timetable. One week we had the last bus back from the wilds into the city centre, and most nights that week we had complaints from passengers who were waiting in the cold and dark for the bus that it was late. "No", he said, "we are exactly on time". The passengers commented that it never did go at "his" time, but was always otherwise at least 10 minutes earlier. He was right.

[David Underdown]

Leaving aside the disussions of cycle safety etc (I fall firmly in the cyclist camp, though I also drive), readers may wish to not that the date for next year has already been announced, the weekend of 9/10 August (with the 100km race again on the Sunday, ie 10 August). This is effectively a week later than this year, presumably because the previous Sunday will see the end of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

I odn't think the route has been confirmed yet, so there may be some variance from this year (which itself was slightly different from the Olympic route, where the race passed over Putney Bridge in both directions, rather than going out over Chiswick Bridge)

[Dave2002]

Flosshilde

There's a training video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5TTA...e_gdata_player