The Wave

There are many aspects to being a good bus driver, but perhaps one of the more important of those is the bus-driver wave. You've all seen it; when two bus drivers pass each other on the road they almost invariably wave at each other. Back in my pre-bus-driver days I always wondered about all the intricacies of this mysterious part of bus-driver sub-culture. How many times a day do they wave at each other? Do they wave every time they pass each other or just the first one or two times? Do they all wave at all the others, or is the wave reserved only for specific co-drivers? How much effort should go into waving at another driver and how much is too much? I had a suspicion that there was more than met the eye with these bus-driver waves, and now after being a bus driver myself for about a month and a half I have gained some insight on them.

Before I started this bus driving gig I wasn't sure if I was going to become a waver or if I would instead become one of those stoic non-wavers. It turns out that I'm a waver. Yup, I wave at every other bus driver I pass. Not only do I wave at all the other bus drivers that I work with, but I even wave at some of the guys that drive other buses and shuttles that I see around the valley a lot. In fact, I've found that the "bus-driver wave" is not limited to just bus drivers but can be extended to lots of other people including all other people driving Town of Vail vehicles, cops, trash truck drivers, snowplow drivers, shuttle drivers, etc. There are also some people who are not privy to the wave though. These include taxi drivers, CME drivers, and certain shuttle drivers. These people don't get the wave because they are discourteous drivers and we don't like them.

As for some of the other questions I had, I wave at the other drivers no matter how many times I see them. Sometimes I will see and wave at the same person probably 20 times in a day, but I wave every time. It's kind of like Pringles, once you start you can't stop. What kind of mixed messages would I send people if I was waving in the morning and then not waving in the afternoon? So I always wave.

Not all waves are created equal though. Some guys try to act all nonchalant about waving, like they are too cool to really be waving but they know that they have to anyway. Some give a nice firm, confident sort of "hey, what's up?" two finger salute. A few give a simple forward-facing up and down palm. Some are a little more creative though. There's one guy who sort of flashes gang signs, often with both hands. One guy seems to have a new crazy motion every time I drive past him. Today his repertoire included a "whipping" motion, a "mummy" gesture, a "chopper bike rider" one, and a "woman with nice curves" signal. Some give peace signs, and some salute military style. Then there are a few guys who are so focused on the task at hand that they just can't be bothered with waving. Sometimes they just give a blank stare. Almost every driver has their own distinct wave, but I personally prefer to just copy the wave of whoever it is I am waving to. When I'm passing the creative guy, I try to think of something creative myself. To the gang sign flasher, I try to respond similarly. To the stoic starer, I just stare back.

If I had to describe my own wave though, I would call it a flick of a peace sign plus the thumb, usually with the right hand. I think one of my favorites, though, is when it's dark out and the drivers can't see each other most of us either flick on one of the interior lights, or click the left-hand turn signal one time. Some drivers go a little overboard with the light flicking though...


Today's video is another 1997 video, "How Bizarre" by OMC. My fondest memory of this video was one day in the summer when I was at the Berthoud pool and I ran into my former best friend's former "girlfriend" and she was wondering where I had disappeared to (because that was after I started homeschooling). Then this song came on and she said, "Oh, like, this is so, like, my song!" I bet this guy would have a pretty good wave if he were a bus driver.