Safety Dance

Every day RTD Drivers do this dance.

Wait, let me start in the right place.

Have you ever been driving down the road and the Bus is going incredibly slow in the right hand lane?
You look to the left, see an opening and jump out and around the bus.
You see an opening in front of the bus so you jump back into that lane.

Sometimes you realize you almost missed your turn and you slam on your brakes and turn into that parking lot or driveway.
Sometimes when you jump back into that lane you realize everybody in front of you is standing on their brakes so you stand on yours as well.

I've done this in the past, many many times.

Have you even considered this from the Bus Driver's point of view?

I'm crawling down the road and the guy in front of me slams on his brakes.
I can't slam on mine because that would bring all 60 of my passengers into the Driver's seat with me - all at once - so I back off a bit and slow down.
Out of nowhere, the guy behind me jumps out and flies around me, dives into that tiny "safety buffer" I left between the guy who just slammed on his brakes, then slams onto his brakes as well.
I slow down a bit more and back off a bit more to accommodate this new guy.

Then another guy jumps out and around me and darts into that space between me and the car in front of me, than stands on his brakes and immediately turns into the driveway that he would have reached only 3 seconds later had he waited behind me.

So you can see that every time another drivers cuts in front of me, I slow down a bit more, causing other drivers to dart around me, etc etc etc.

That space in front of me isn't for cars to fit into at their convenience.
It's literally a legal requirement and it's a safety buffer.

The CDL and RTD teach us that we are to give 1 second (this is my translation - it's a bit more than the actual requirement) for each ten miles an hour we're driving.
If I'm going ten miles and hour, there is at least "one, one thousand" space between us.
At only ten miles an hour, we're travelling a mile every six minutes.
That's close to 15 feet every second.
That's about two car lengths at only 10 miles an hour.

So you can see that once we get to even 25 or even as high as 55 on the highway, we are moving it.
And we need that buffer and that buffer needs to increase as our speed increases.

That buffer is a safety zone, anything between us and the car in front of us becomes a hood ornament if we have to slam on the brakes.

So when I'm cruising down the highway at 55 and you feel I'm not going fast enough, please - go around me.
But if you think that space in front of me is there because I'm too slow or because I'm giving you room to fit in front of me, you're wrong.
When you jump in front of me, cutting my safety buffer in half - you're increasing your chances of an accident.

The other morning I was driving a PACKED - and when I say packed, you folks who've been on a standing room only accordion bus know what I mean by packed! - bus, it's only 6:30 in the morning and we're hauling butt down the highway.
I've got the at least 6 second space between us and the cars in front and as usual another car decides he needs to be in front of me and not behind me.
Of course he has to cut right in front of me because he's making a point of showing how upset he is with me that I've been driving in front of him, or some such...
As he dives in front of me, I have to tap the brakes so he doesn't hit the bikes on the rack (yeah, he's THAT close!) and it's a good thing I did.
We were going up a small incline in the highway and traffic in front of us was blocked from view for a second or two.

That's all it took.
The guy in front of me slammed on his brakes as he realized he was coming up to parked cars at "passing me" speeds and I thanked God that I'd already had my foot on the brake pedal as I slammed on my brakes.
I was actually standing up with my foot slammed on the brakes and I was pulling up on the steering wheel to push me down harder on the brakes.
For a split second I considered pulling the "E-Brake" (we have an emergency air brake we use for parking) I was looking so hard for more brakes.

There were like 100 swears and cusses flying behind me.
I heard bottles, phones and bags hitting the floor.
Almost immediately folks were throwing insults at the guy in front of us.

The regulars in the front said in unison, "Great reflexes/stop/catch."
Folks started clapping!

Say What?
LOL - anyway..

We finally stopped so close to the car in front of me that I could see his eyes in his driver's side mirror - I think he was crying!
I could smell his underwear - I KNOW he soiled them!
Bill Cosby once said, "First you say it, then you do it."
This guy said it.

Had I not already been tapping the brakes, I would have literally gone through him and several of the cars in front of him because he'd drawn my attention with his unsafe driving and blocked my sight and cut my safety zone.

Everybody on the bus was alright, we wiped up coffee and folks picked up their belongings.
All was well and we made it into the Civic Center Station on time.

I'm sure the guy in front of us made it to work, although he almost didn't.

That space you find between the bus and the traffic in front of him is there for a very good, if not legal reason.
Please respect it, please consider it, please be aware of why we have it.

It's for all of our safety.
In the meantime, "Welcome aboard, find your seats - Let's Roll!"