Imagine the scene. You’re heading to work on your bicycle and you’ve just turned right into this very friendly looking bit of “Bus and Cycle Only” road.
Now imagine that, at the bus stop on the right is a parked, single-decker bus, letting on passengers, and approaching behind it is a bright yellow, double-decker school bus.
It’s about 8:40am and it’s a quaint picture of Swindon in the morning “rush” hour.
And then…
The (empty-apart-from-its-driver) double-decker school bus, probably returning to the depot, doesn’t stop behind the parked bus. No! It pulls out to go around it, speeds up and engages with you in a life-or-death game of chicken! Bike-against-bus. Let’s see who wins!
This is the situation I’ve found myself in twice in the last week. Today, the driver of the yellow bus didn’t seem to even see me. He was looking at the bus he was passing, presumably trying to wave to his “mate” driving the stationery bus.
Fortunately, the bus-stop on the left has a little lay-by to pull into and you can pull into this and get out of the way of the oncoming public transport.
I have today written to Thamesdown Transport asking them to have a word with the drivers of their fleet of yellow school buses to tell them to take a little more care when overtaking…maybe looking at what’s coming the other way might help?
Maybe some proper pictures tomorrow?