I didn’t hear it mentioned on the radio, tv or in the press but it must have been ‘national be nice day’ yesterday. It started as I left Winchester depot and drove up the slip road onto the M3, the slip road is uphill so it’s difficult to reach the speed of the traffic on the motorway before you need to join it. Normally it’s indicator on and fight your way into the flow. Not yesterday, as soon as my indicator was on, a car flashed it’s lights and throttled back so that I could get in. Thanks, mate (quick left and right flash to show appreciation). And so it went on all day! Whenever I needed to overtake I simply indicated and the first vehicle behind me said ‘after you’! It wasn’t only cars, or trucks, it was everybody and everything.
Whilst I was thinking how good the day was my mind wandered back to something which happened over a year ago before I joined the Megabus rota. At that time I was driving local service buses in Winchester and was standing by my bus in the bus station waiting for my depature time in a couple of minutes. Winchester bus station is a one way system, buses enter then park on stands (nose to platform). The stands are both on the right and left in a herring bone pattern. When it’s time to leave you reverse off the stand and head for the exit. Back to that day – suddenly a Lamborghini came into the bus station stopping right in the middle of it! A gull wing door swung up, a guy rushed out and ran at a bus which had arrived seconds before. It transpired that the Lamborghini driver had been weaving in and out of the traffic on the Wicnchester one way system (low gear, lots of engine revs and noise etc) and thought he had time to cut in front of the bus. He didn’t have time and lost a door mirror. Whilst he was ranting, raving and shouting in the bus station his car continued to block buses in which should have left. He was asked by a couple of drivers to move it but he wanted to see the Managing Director of the bus station before doing so! Then I heard it – the beep ….. beep ….. beep …… beep of a reversing horn. This reversing horn was fitted to a B10 which then reversed over the Lamborghini! Lamborghini’s are very low at the front and the tail of a B10 quite high in comparison. I could get my bus out but didn’t, this was street theatre not to be missed. I did of course have to leave and it was at the point where the Lamborghini driver was being shown the big signs on the bus station wall saying that it was private property and no liability was accepted for anything.