So I've finished two days of bus-driver training and basically it's pretty freaking sweet. The first few hours yesterday were kind of boring, but then after lunch I finally got to get behind the wheel of a real-life bus and do some maneuvers through several different road-cone obstacle courses. I pretty much aced every single maneuver on my first try and my supervisor was pretty surprised at how well I did on them. He was like, "are you sure you have never done this before?" As a result I am progressing rather quickly through the training which is good news because I don't have a lot of time to devote to it. Actually I wish we were going even faster. Over the past two days we have probably lost at least 3 hours to sitting around while my supervisor drinks coffee, bullshits with other drivers, or tells/repeats various irrelevant stories.
Today I actually got to drive on a route and pick up real live people and it was kind of scary. Driving on the road and stopping at stops and picking up and dropping off people is pretty different from backing through cones at the bus barn. Luckily I only closed the door on one lady, and I only ran over one curb and luckily I didn't have any passengers at that point. Also, I haven't hit anything, I didn't even knock over any cones!
Learning how to physically maneuver the bus is kind of a small portion of the training though. A lot of time is spent to learning about various procedural kinds of things. I have to learn virtually word-for-word the extensive pre-trip vehicle inspection and brake test procedure that I will have to do for my big CDL test. There are also lots of check-in/out procedures to remember; learning what forms I need to fill out when and where I need to sign and when I need to take odometer readings and such. I haven't even started to learn how to use the radios or the satellite bus-tracking system yet. I also still have to learn all of the routes and the stop names and stuff.
So overal the training is going excellently and I am really loving it. Driving a bus is a little bit harder than I had always imagined it would be, but it's also just as much fun as I thought it would be. Try not to be too jealous of me, ok?
Also, I haven't made any big mistakes like this guy did:
2 comments:
Dustin,
I can remember you "driving" the music stands during band sophomore year and musing about how cool it would be to drive a bus :) You'll have to let me know your routes, so when I'm home for Christmas I can come take a spin. My mom rides the bus from Eagle to Avon every weekday, so you might see her once or twice, probably along with many other people you know in the valley. I'm glad you're finally realizing your dream :)
Hey Catherine, yeah I'm excited about it. I actually won't be driving the ECO busses, but rather the Town of Vail busses, so I won't be seeing your mom, but I'll definitely let you know about my route schedule if you want to come take a ride, haha.
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