Want to drive a bus? Think safety, courtesy

I drove very large interstate buses for awhile - a job that gives a whole new meaning to "heavy traffic." It changed the way I think about safety and gave me a lot of respect for professional drivers.

The trips from my base in Indiana to destinations in Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky were an education: Long days with 55 people aboard, sometimes quiet, sometimes alive with singing and conviviality.

Every minute, I was thinking about safety: A minimum of four seconds following distance between vehicles, preferably longer. The sheer size of the bus in heavy city traffic, scanning six mirrors constantly, looking ahead and planning ahead - no sudden braking, which could throw my senior citizens off their feet on the way to the bathroom.

I like driving, but operating a big bus is a responsibility to be considered carefully. This is worth thinking about, because there’s a need for drivers, especially in the IndyGo system and for school buses. Some school districts are so short of drivers that they park a bus out front with a big sign, offering free training.

I trained on school buses before moving to interstate coaches, which are larger and less nimble on city streets. Drivers have to earn a Class B commercial drivers license, which can take several weeks of training, three hours of written tests in Indiana, a bus inspection and driving exam.

During the bus inspection, the test-taker does a walk around the vehicle with an examiner, pointing out everything that should be checked on a pre-trip inspection: from the obvious, like making sure the air brakes and emergency exits are functioning, to the suspension, lights, steering and engine components. You have to recite the inspection exactly right and correctly perform a safety check of the air brakes, so I memorized the inspection by hours of practice, often walking around the house reciting my list of things to check to the amusement of my wife.

I’m “retired” from bus-driving now, though my CDL is still current. I like to take city buses to work in downtown Indianapolis, and I’m usually impressed by the quality of the drivers. Some trips are more interesting: One night, our driver missed her turn and decided to back up on a four-lane city street. Luckily, traffic was light and nobody was walking behind us.

One of the IndyGo operators I’ve ridden with came to Indianapolis after driving charters in Chicago with Free Enterprise. That company’s coaches are a frequent sight on the interstate, and she drove a lot of trips over to South Bend to Notre Dame football games.

She said driving big buses was a challenge in Chicago, and that while she loved the city she was glad to be in Indianapolis. Just like the rest of us, her biggest challenges are backups around crashes, construction delays and rush-hour traffic.

IndyGo stresses driver courtesy, but you get the feeling some of the drivers are naturally friendly without the need for rules. They know that carrying passengers is a service business and they don’t mind that.

“I try - it’s not always easy, but I try - to always look at the bright side,” one coach operator told me.

“I hear other drivers say they have a hard time with the passengers,” she said, “But that doesn’t seem to happen to me.”

- John Strauss, jcs1122@yahoo.com