| Comment | My dad is a bus driver and right now they're absolutely drained of drivers. It's not worth being a bus driver for all the hassle, especially on the rougher routes. Long hours, terrible schedules.
A lot of drivers quit during covid and went on to drive trucks instead.
There's also a lot of issues with buses on school routes being overloaded by school children using their new entitlement cards for short or pointless journeys but such large numbers getting on at once that it's delaying some service times.
A lot of drivers are also tired of having to deal with junkies who get on for free but treat their buses like their personal social club and threaten drivers when they try to evict them.
A lot of drivers are old and aging and eventually they fail their medicals and can no longer continue to drive. Those numbers aren't being replaced because there is no incentive to being a bus driver compared to driving for amazon or getting a full HGV for trucks and then getting the massive sign on bonuses and better wages and conditions.
The only reason my dad hasn't quit is because he's too old to want to find another job.
And right now there's an insane number of routes that often run empty or near empty but companies can't reduce services because people aren't willing to wait more than 10 minutes for a bus if the route has been every 10 minutes before. |
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