The Bus that Broke Down

I had my first encounter with a bus that broke down last night. I thought I smelled something bad when I boarded the bus, but was hoping to continue my journey on this last second stop before it does a nice undisrupted leg on the expressway.

But I did not get pass a few meters before the driver pulled up halfway and got down for a look. The rest of us looked on, mostly unperturbed.

Ten minutes later, someone decided he had enough of a wait and got off.

Another few minutes later, the driver uttered to just a few passengers that 'maybe we have to transfer buses' and proceeded to program the ezlink to refund the credits and to print us a complimentary bus ticket each.

We lined up and the driver made sure that every tapped their ezlink cards to get a refund.

He never ever told us what happened.

The bus driver quite possible fulfilled his standard operating procedures- stop bus, check, call HQ, reprogram ezlink, issue free ticket for next bus ride. If this was an ISO audit, he passed with flying colours.

I used to take a bus to work in Melbourne. There are usually a few people in the bus serving our suburb, and I noticed everyone greeted the driver with a 'Good morning'. I started with a Hi, and thought that was good enough. Then when people got down, they shouted out 'Thank you!' from the back door, and some waved. My eyes popped, my heart raced, and I could only muster a friendly wave, hoping the driver can see it from his rear mirror. After some time, I do 'morning' and 'thanks' fairly fine. In a way, I am glad Melbourne taught me that.

Perhaps this was why I felt 'weird' about this broken down bus incident. The driver did not explain to us what happened, and we were left to fill in what we think it was. One passenger called his friend to explain about a punctured tyre, another said the engine was broken. No one really asked the driver anyway.

Maybe the bus driver was shy, just as I was before I learnt how to yell out a 'Goodbye' in front of 20 pairs of eyes. Perhaps it is a Singaporean thing to not want to be any form of conspicuous position, even if the context really calls for it.