The Wanderings of busman7

Since leaving on my RTW last August 19, over 9 months ago & having traveled many many miles by plane, train, ship, taxi, tuk tuk, elephant, camel & all forms of buses from tourist coaches, chicken buses, local Burmese buses, Toyota Land Cruisers in Tibet & crazy Thais driving 12 passenger Toyota vans,  even a 38 hr trip on an old coach from Deli to Kathmandu I never had any concerns for my safety while traveling until I started traveling on Australian Greyhound buses!

Having been involved in the transportation industry for around 45 years, owning my own bus line for 25 of those + being a driver trainer qualified by the MTO to do driver examination tests I have some idea of what I am talking about.

Now while Greyhound is technically operating to the letter of the laws, regarding hours of work, which are  made by simple serpents (which explains a lot), they are NOT applying any common sense to their implementation. An example is that on the run from Darwin to Broome, a trip that takes 52 hrs return over 3 days, they operate it with 2 drivers but instead of switching every 4 hrs, each driver runs 12 hrs straight. Now this may be all right for the first 12 hr day shift but as anyone who has ever driven at night knows that last hour before daylight is a bitch so why have a driver that has been driving all night try to stay awake when there is another rested one available? Because they don’t give a damn about their passengers is why! Oh did I mention that upon arriving at Tennant Creek at 1:30 am they wake everyone up & make them exit the bus to sit in a deserted terminal with NO services while the driver delivers the mail (can’t have that rif-raf around the post office you know), after all the passengers are mostly indigenous people & back-packers so it doesn’t matter any way!

Had a driver this morning who was falling asleep but was too stupid to stop & walk around the bus a couple times to revive a bit & spent the last 5 miles running on the rumble strip & the wrong side of the road before almost sideswiping a parked pickup a couple blocks from the terminal. Also on the trip out of Broome the bus traveled 22 1/2 hrs before a stop longer than 10 minutes for a meal break which really gives the drivers time for a good meal so they can safely do their job not to mention a complete disregard for the passengers.

I won’t even mention the lack of intelligence of the terminal staff & ticket agents other than the fact that they can’t walk & chew gum at the same time, which is why I ended up in Brisbane instead of Townsville (at least it got me out of Tennant Creek a day early & closer to the Sydney Airport.

Yep Greyhound Australia is the perfect example of what happens when the bigger is better syndrome has been in place for a few years & the competition eliminated, everything reduced to the lowest common denominator & common sense is blown away in the wind!

Won’t get into the trains which have a token car for the peasant class & the other 25 for people with more money than brains. See what transpires tomorrow (every thing turns into a pumpkin from Friday at about 5:00 pm until late Monday morning) when I try to book a seat? May just end up booking an early flight out OZ as am not impressed with the country at this point in time.

Knowing what I know now wish I had spent an extra month in Indonesia & just skipped OZ & NZ!!

But that’s what travel is all about. Experiencing the good the bad & the ugly!

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 30th, 2010 at 06:37 and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.