Passengers using the rear door button to board in the rear must remember all coaches are not equal. Some buses require that you hold the button until the doors are opened at least half way. On other buses, the doors will slam shut and the chance to board may end right there. The three-tap rule, …
Author Archives: driverdoug2002
Why Be A Driver?
If you want to hire a business major, you can get one for $50,000 a year easy because there are thousands of them. If you want a skilled truck driver or city bus driver, you better start asking at $150,000 per annum. Why? Because no one wants to do it! Many ask this question, and …
One Armed Bandit
I picked up my papers for my second part and the superintendent, who was by the second desk, commented on my holding a cup of coffee in my right hand and, paddle in the left. He suggested that I not bring personal items into the dispatcher’s office while doing business. I smiled, as I remembered …
WOW Lenora Street in Belltown District
The Romanized version of Tao can be spelled Dao. I did this to be alliterative to my name as Driver Doug. Below is a link to my artist writer YouTube channel now updated from the Dao of Doug and rail transit blog to Walks on Waikiki –videos about walking, transit, and bikes.
Twenty Questions
This is a fun game to play, as is Charades, in a large group at a party. But if that party is a waiting queue on Market Street on Fourth or Fifth, the game becomes no fun real fast as the lights go red again, and the buses back up behind the red lane in …
Transmitter Ball
If you look up at the poles on the ETI Skoda coaches, you’ll see a black duct taped ball near the collector on the left pole. This is where the turn signal transmits to the doughnut on the wires before a switch to toggle the poles to a left, right, or center direction upon a …
Pudding Pants
Having left the raucous Receiver’s office at Potrero Division for the quieter Presidio Division, I thought material for my next book would suffer a drought not unlike the one Northern California had been experiencing for the last several years. As I write this chapter, snowpack is 160 per cent of normal, and the folks up …
Safe than Sorry
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 …
Night Park
When we bring our coach to rest in the yard, we are to log off on our radio and secure our coach. It’s interesting how sloppy we can get in doing this after a long day. I pulled-in last night with rain in the forecast and did not see the tale tell parking lights on …
Leading Green
The Hampton Roads area by the Chesapeake Bay has a nice sign under its signals. The sign below an overhead signal is marked Leading Green, or Delayed Green. This signals to motorists who gets to turn first or last at a major intersection of four lanes or more, and with a four or six way …
The Dao of Doug: A Bus Driver's Perspective 