Dave the Renegade:
We had some coach-bus drivers come on the lorries when I was driving, they couldn,t reverse, were no good off the main road, not fit to lace a lorry drivers boots.
Maybe they had just passed their c+e?
How good were you when you first started?
I used to be a coach driver before I started driving trucks and it took a bit of getting used to but its no different from learning any new job skills.
As for not being fit to lace a lorry drivers boots,if you can drive a truck,you should be able lace your own bloody boots!!
Joemaxi, there was no HGV when I started, they came in 1968/69, You had to get one after that once your car licence ran out, or if you didn,t qualify by grandfather riights you took the test. I could reverse better than them,when I was a kid, my old man was a lorry driver, could reverse a wagon when I was 12.
Moving over to PVC, or PSV even could be a good short term solution in the coming few years, if the news is anything to go by.
Apparently people won’t be flying abroad so much over the coming few years and they will be taking holidays within the UK. So, providing they don’t drive all their own cars, the coaching companies should be getting more business.
Can’t see transport picking up much, so worth the shot especially if you already have the licence.
prichardson:
Moving over to PVC, or PSV even could be a good short term solution in the coming few years, if the news is anything to go by.
Apparently people won’t be flying abroad so much over the coming few years and they will be taking holidays within the UK. So, providing they don’t drive all their own cars, the coaching companies should be getting more business.
Can’t see transport picking up much, so worth the shot especially if you already have the licence.
Paul.
Think you have a very valid point Paul- people will still wanna go on holiday- coaches go overseas too
I would love to have a crack at bus driving - as long as I didn’t have to pick up any passengers that is, any truck driver you speak to that has driven buses in the past always say that the first 12 months was great, but they never want to go back to it for some reason. Can’t say that I blame them looking at some of the people that use buses - no offence meant to anyone.
Dave the Renegade:
Joemaxi, there was no HGV when I started, they came in 1968/69, You had to get one after that once your car licence ran out, or if you didn,t qualify by grandfather riights you took the test. I could reverse better than them,when I was a kid, my old man was a lorry driver, could reverse a wagon when I was 12.
I was one of those type,the type that couldn`t reverse worth a monkeys!
I hadn`t even sat in an artic until I had a 1 hour assesment before I booked my lessons.I was lucky as after I had passed my test,some of my friends took me out and showed me how to reverse,etc.
It is unbelieveably daunting the first time you get hande a set of keys and told to get on with it.
Everytime I see someone struggling to reverse,I always go and offer to help as I can remember exactly how they feel!
I have a mate who works for Selwyns/Hardings, he has a great job on the coaches. He does Euro and local and gets put up in top hotels etc…seems a great job to me and one which i could take to. I take my hat off to anyone who drives a bus though, how they cope with passengers and traffic all day is beyond me, they must have the patience of saints.
im thinking about going on the buses too. And for all the negative comments about it, i could reel off more for lorry driving, like traffic, poor facilities, very long hours, being stuck in a tin box all day and having to park up in crap service areas with the stench of wee, worrying about whether your load or diesel is gonna get nicked, bad attitude from goods in people, traffc operators who dont know their arse from their elbow, very long waits at rdcs, bad attitude from car drivers…i could go on and on. Id much rather put up with town traffic and a few bad passengers. Truck driving is kak!
And also, here in ipswich, ive never seen any trouble on the buses whenever ive been on, even when ive been on my way home at 11pm on a sat nite. And in fact,during the day especially, most passengers are extremely polite to the driver, always saying thank you as they get off.
Ive posted on this one before. !0 years been there and done that and would never ever go back. i would rather do a sprinter van type job than drive moanin pensioners and scummy chav youths for a wage
It’s like any job, it is what you make of it. And if you go with the “It’s going to be crap” attitude then you will find all the faults. If you keep an open mind then you never know, you may just like it. And at the end of the day it is money on the table.
" I’d rather walk over broken glass to get where I want to go than have to put up with a miserable,impatient,arrogant and doesn’t know what he’s doing driver"
It is very clear from some of the postings that it’s easy to make assumptions about a job that people have NEVER actually done.
Forgive me but the point of the post was to get an idea about how professional drivers would consider changing careers- NOT just slagging off the general public- not everyone is a moaning scumbag in my experience
It would be the boredom of going over the same routes, unless you are on touring and there will only be so many routes for that. The few times recently I have used a bus I have to say there were more thankyous from people getting off the bus than I get when finishing unloading, so passengers can’t all be bad. So depending on the events,I think or hope that I’ll stay where I am!
