The Moron’s Guide to Getting the Bus in a Tube Strike

When the tube is screwed, the ground-dwelling moles and gremlins come to the surface with their mining equipment and aversion to daylight. Or that’s how regular bus users view them. These part-timers try the alternative transport- the bus. Unfortunately, no one seems to have told them some of the little tactics as to how to actually use the bus. Sounds easy enough? Think again. Much of the self-awareness and knowledge of using the bus stems from being a regular. Read on to learn what plenty are missing.

If the bus is full, there is probably another one right behind it

They look aghast as the bus you have waited ages for comes hurtling past. If no-one wants to get off, the driver isn’t going to pick anyone up. Therefore, they make a great show of summoning the next one. They will then barge onto this one with an increased sense of entitlement having waited an extra minute. You can of course get the third one behind which, with a freer schedule having had two in front to soak up passengers, arrives promptly and largely empty.

There was a queue…

After this theatre, quite far from the sirens summoning Odysseus, the queue seems to reverse as the more confused and agitated pile on. So you end up in the cab beside the driver. That is if they know to shuffle in while your oyster snakes around three people to tap in- so you can’t be kicked off.

The doors have to close

If anyone else has crammed into the cab, make way for the doors or we’re going nowhere.

No, this bus to Tottenham Court Road doesn’t go to Vauxhall…

Inspired by this writer’s own experience, if you get on a bus that has a destination on the front that isn’t your’s, don’t be quite so put out when the driver answers your question. Despite Sadiq Khan’s hopper fare, the bus still isn’t quite the connected mesh of the tube. Try to be more polite when you ask the driver to open the doors to let you off as if it was his fault.

If people come downstairs, there is room upstairs.

This is one for the students. You might have had to get up before two. You might be studying Biomedicawhatsit. But take it from me. Preservation of mass means if you have had to make room for eight people coming downstairs to get off, there are at least eight spaces upstairs. Then you won’t be such a blockage as people push past your headphones.

If the back empties out- use it

Look up from your phone. Just because you have connection up here doesn’t mean you can confine yourself. If the back has also emptied out at a key stop, notice how a load of us are still crammed at the front with people trying to get on. Move down and we can all breathe, or even go upstairs!

Be ready to get off before we reach the stop.

There will probably be the ‘bus wall of death’ as featured in the Dicks of London Transport. Trouble is, they can’t do anything about it. Barging through them as you panic about the impending doors closing is not very nice. But if you are near enough to the door to join the current as others get off there you won’t have to.

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