I hear this phrase a-lot in training or safety meetings. Passengers also use it from time to time when asking for a transfer if clipper tag-in warnings go off when entering the bus. The start of 2017 has the second Friday showing a full round moon and is dated Friday the thirteenth. I write this missive on Saturday the fourteenth, relieved I made the workday without any paperwork. But I came close. Too close for comfort.
I teased passengers short on change at the fare-box, that to risk not receiving a transfer on the First Friday of the New Year, on the First Full Moon, was a dangerous lifestyle choice. I asked people to refrain from wearing hockey masks, and that anyone named Freddie should please wait for the next bus. You’ll very rarely not know your on Driver Doug’s bus, especially on a Friday the Thirteenth!
We experience the lunar and solar eclipse this winter early on and it gets me to thinking about how we create our own bow-shock of experience by whether we maintain an awareness of ‘safe than sorry’ as we go about our day on the road, in the office, or on the bus.
Am I keeping a safe mental distance and a safe physical distance between potential eclipses of ride share vehicles and crossing pedestrians? Is the Muniverse giving me hints that my Grace is about to expire?
Perhaps the quickest way to go from sorry to safe is to take time off! Humu’humu’nku’a’pu’a the state fish of our 50th state calls to me to visit him on the reef at Waikiki! I need to see the Hono, the sea turtle, to surface for some air by the surf in Hawaii! Alas, I have found the true definition of island fever. I thought it was someone newly moved to the islands that had a craving to get off back to the mainland. This is not true for me now. It is someone missing the call of the surf on the reef at the shore of a beach. It is of a mainlander (me) that needs a GPS update and reboot to clear my brain, my hard drive, so I won’t be so hard on you, my dear reader, my dear passenger!
Indeed, there are clues everywhere and this gets me excited about my job and keeps me back on my toes. Or should I say, back on my heels? Being back in my body about how I am sitting and gripping the wheel; the tone in my voice. Am I tired and disinterested or engaged and helpful? As soon as my attention wanders, the complaint cue is ready and waiting! Being safe than sorry is another way of being mindful instead of a devil may care attitude.
Losing Zen can be the hardest battle to overcome as a Transit Operator in the tech mecca of San Francisco!
The Dao of Doug: A Bus Driver's Perspective 