Stopping for ‘runners’ in Winchester that is’.   By coincidence I wrote about this subject exactly a year ago.  I wrote then that I had no problem with stopping for someone running for a bus with 2 hourly frequency but not on town services with 10 minute frequency.   The problem is that the bus I drive from Winchester to Salisbury has a frequency of at best one every 2 hours BUT follows the first section of a 15 minute frequency local bus when it leaves the bus station.  Twice last week I stopped for a runner only to be asked for a ticket to a couple of stops up the road and which is more than adequately served by the local 15 minute frequency bus just behind me.  Well that’s it from now on, no more stopping.  I’m sorry if you are running for me as the last bus of the day to Salisbury but it’s been spoiled for you by impatient, thoughtless, local runners!

When I’m arriving back in Winchester a similar annoyance often occurs but I don’t have the option of ignoring them as I have with runners.  The buses on my route are older buses which are not kneeling buses, don’t have low floors, have at least two steps to board them and have no buggy space.  Yet still people at bus stops with buggies still insist on sticking their arm out to request the bus.  If a passenger requests a bus to stop it’s a ‘no no’ to carry on.  I stop and explain that to use this bus they’ll need to fold the buggy, carry it up the steps and then stow it in the luggage rack “There’ll be local low floor bus along in a couple of minutes, much easier for you to wait for that” is my usual suggestion.  But no, they want to go now, this moment, on this bus.  So they get the child out of the buggy, fold the thing up, start up the steps with the folded buggy usually struggling to get it past the pole at which point I’m often able to announce “There goes the bus you really wanted, it’s just passed us”!