I refrain from travelling by the bus for any commuting within Chennai, for its sheer unpleasant experience. I have had no problems in travelling by bus in any other place. Be it my native Trichy or Kumbakonam or any other place that I have managed to travel. After a very long time, I managed to board a local bus for travelling through a distance of barely three kilometres. And I could see that nothing had changed over the past three odd years, when I had boarded a bus to travel through the same length.
The conductor was still behaving very stiffly. Rather surprising since the bus had barely twenty odd passengers. I can understand his stiffness, when the same bus has around sixty odd passengers, with very little breathing space in between. But with the half seats empty, giving the same old rough stare, isn't exactly what you call pleasing or cordial.
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| Carpet of Dust and Messy Ergonomics (11.01.2013) |
The bus was badly maintained, with score of seats having their outer fabric ripped off. Though, one can't entirely blame the MTC for this mess, I just wondered if they really cared about these. As usual, the romeos of our town had the heart with an arrow in various places. As always, I had this thought of taking a spear and shoveling through the heart of the person who drew all this in somebody else's property. If that idiot thought it was romantic, somebody should slap him out of his dreams and tell him that, it isn't. It is nothing different from vandalism.
But the days travel had me notice / observe a few things apart from the usual things detailed above, most of which revolves around the image that I shot with my mobile camera, and shared here.
Past five year's car driving has made me realize certain aspects while driving, which I found to be woefully lacking or poorly executed in the bus that I was travelling. Honestly, the driver is a poor soul. The riding behaviour on the road can force you to lose your temper every moment. The messy ergonomics adds to the woes. Non co-operating and complaining passengers don't make life any easier. From where I was sitting, I could judge his miseries were to some extent.
Every vehicle has its share of blindspots for the driver, and due to its sheer size, the bus driver would easily have the largest blindspot. The way the motorists overtake from left and right, often without sounding any horn, can intimidate and irritate most drivers. As the bus was trying to inch to the centre median, we have the helmetless-headless-sonoftheroad-senseless-romeo zooming past the bus. Nothing wrong in him overtaking, except the fact that the gap between the bus and the centre median wasn't exactly ten feet wide, but just a fraction more than the width of the two wheeler. This is okay, if the bus is stationery, and the two wheeler was doing around forty or fifty kilometres an hour.
This is definitely not okay for a bus doing around thirty or forty kilometres an hour, and the idiot riding his bike at twice or thrice that speed. If the bus driver had decided to nudge an inch or two further to his right, I am pretty sure, the country would have had one idiot less on the roads. Though thoroughly irritated, the thoughtful driver had the sense not to press further, and saved the nut's life. I suspect that the nut would be feeling "cool" about his stupid stunt, without realizing that he was just a pedal away from death.
As I thought it was only the monkeys outside that would cause trouble, I found one inside as well. The bus had moved from a bus stop a few hundred metres back and stopped at a signal. The next bus stop was a hundred metres away from the signal. One of the passengers came to the bus driver asking to open the electrically operated door, so that he can get down at the signal itself, since he has to go to a place which is nearer. The driver had flatly refused, but patiently stating that they are not supposed to permit embarking or disembarking at signals, as they cause chaos at the signal, affecting the traffic movement.
As always, none of these made any sense to the Einstein the passenger was, the irate passenger started whining, and argued till the driver got fed up, cussed and operated the lever to open the door. As the passenger stepped out, a motor vehicle came speeding to the left halted on seeing the person appear from no where in particular all of a sudden. ?And a new fiery exchange started between the passenger and the two wheeler rider. And the driver had that "I told you so look" as he watched the passenger walk away.
Every now and then, I found the driver crouching and stretching his right arm. For a few seconds, I was under the impression he was suffering from some back pain, and he was trying to help himself out with that yoga stunt of his in a moving bus. I found that he was actually operating the horn lever which was placed somewhere right of the steering, and at his knee level.
One cannot comfortably reach out and operate the horn that way. And everytime he crouches to operate the horn, I am guessing that he would be having relatively less, but significant, control over the steering, and therefore the bus. Though it may be difficult for have a car like horn spread over the middle of steering wheel, I still think, something very similar and simple should be possible for buses. I find the singled handed operation of the bus' steering more scary than adventurous.
The gear lever to his left was no better. As can be seen from the image, the gear lever is a bit farther to his left and below his knee level! Not only does he have to stretch far to his left, he should once again do that yoga stunt to actually shift gears. The gear throw would easily exceed a feet, and its harshness / roughness not making the task any easier. To top it all, not even one gear shift was smooth. Nobody is expecting car kind of smoothness, but one is also not expecting tractor kind of harshness as well.
With a high perched seat, and the operation of accelerator or break is equally cumbersome. Whoever designed that seat, and the related gear and horn lever placement, should be spanked and then fired. I found the entire ergonomics to be messy beyond tolerance, and the result of absolute indifference and lack of a functional mind.
And one more aspect which striking about the photo is the extent of dust around the driver's area, including dust which had spread like a carpet even on the console! As far as I could see with my relatively modest eyesight, none of the meters were actually working. Not even one needle moved. Including the speedo or tacho. When the transport corporations are repetitively emphasising on fuel efficiency and performance efficiency, I find the idle meters and consoles, far from amusing. And the dust, the photo tells it all. Was wondering if the bus got its due on Ayudha Pooja?
To recollect one good thing about the travel, the travel fare was just nine rupees. As against the autofare of seventy I had paid earlier for the one way travel. As I disembarked the bus, I knew I had spent way less for a very important realization. Don't cuss the poor bus driver. Atleast don't do it always.
This is definitely not okay for a bus doing around thirty or forty kilometres an hour, and the idiot riding his bike at twice or thrice that speed. If the bus driver had decided to nudge an inch or two further to his right, I am pretty sure, the country would have had one idiot less on the roads. Though thoroughly irritated, the thoughtful driver had the sense not to press further, and saved the nut's life. I suspect that the nut would be feeling "cool" about his stupid stunt, without realizing that he was just a pedal away from death.
As I thought it was only the monkeys outside that would cause trouble, I found one inside as well. The bus had moved from a bus stop a few hundred metres back and stopped at a signal. The next bus stop was a hundred metres away from the signal. One of the passengers came to the bus driver asking to open the electrically operated door, so that he can get down at the signal itself, since he has to go to a place which is nearer. The driver had flatly refused, but patiently stating that they are not supposed to permit embarking or disembarking at signals, as they cause chaos at the signal, affecting the traffic movement.
As always, none of these made any sense to the Einstein the passenger was, the irate passenger started whining, and argued till the driver got fed up, cussed and operated the lever to open the door. As the passenger stepped out, a motor vehicle came speeding to the left halted on seeing the person appear from no where in particular all of a sudden. ?And a new fiery exchange started between the passenger and the two wheeler rider. And the driver had that "I told you so look" as he watched the passenger walk away.
Every now and then, I found the driver crouching and stretching his right arm. For a few seconds, I was under the impression he was suffering from some back pain, and he was trying to help himself out with that yoga stunt of his in a moving bus. I found that he was actually operating the horn lever which was placed somewhere right of the steering, and at his knee level.
One cannot comfortably reach out and operate the horn that way. And everytime he crouches to operate the horn, I am guessing that he would be having relatively less, but significant, control over the steering, and therefore the bus. Though it may be difficult for have a car like horn spread over the middle of steering wheel, I still think, something very similar and simple should be possible for buses. I find the singled handed operation of the bus' steering more scary than adventurous.
The gear lever to his left was no better. As can be seen from the image, the gear lever is a bit farther to his left and below his knee level! Not only does he have to stretch far to his left, he should once again do that yoga stunt to actually shift gears. The gear throw would easily exceed a feet, and its harshness / roughness not making the task any easier. To top it all, not even one gear shift was smooth. Nobody is expecting car kind of smoothness, but one is also not expecting tractor kind of harshness as well.
With a high perched seat, and the operation of accelerator or break is equally cumbersome. Whoever designed that seat, and the related gear and horn lever placement, should be spanked and then fired. I found the entire ergonomics to be messy beyond tolerance, and the result of absolute indifference and lack of a functional mind.
And one more aspect which striking about the photo is the extent of dust around the driver's area, including dust which had spread like a carpet even on the console! As far as I could see with my relatively modest eyesight, none of the meters were actually working. Not even one needle moved. Including the speedo or tacho. When the transport corporations are repetitively emphasising on fuel efficiency and performance efficiency, I find the idle meters and consoles, far from amusing. And the dust, the photo tells it all. Was wondering if the bus got its due on Ayudha Pooja?
To recollect one good thing about the travel, the travel fare was just nine rupees. As against the autofare of seventy I had paid earlier for the one way travel. As I disembarked the bus, I knew I had spent way less for a very important realization. Don't cuss the poor bus driver. Atleast don't do it always.
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