Street Game

My Friday 542 bus driver is the kind of driver you want to avoid if you want a relaxed ride to someplace. This guy is aggressive as a player of the Street Game. At one stretch of road there are four streets that eventually merge into two lanes on a bridge. As a result there is always a backup before the two lanes on the bridge.

At one point a two lane, one way, segment was packed with three lanes and not moving hardly at all. Parallel to this two lane one way street and only a few feet away, was a two lane two way street. This street passes through a tunnel and is used as a short cut for car traffic to get from the other side of the railroad onto this one way street headed to the bridge. Traffic coming through the tunnel does a hard right turn and merges into the one way traffic going to the bridge. Ahead of our bus are three lanes of traffic coming in from the right, merging into the two lanes going to the bridge. All of a sudden our driver makes a decision to push his way through the three lanes of traffic and onto the street from the tunnel. Once on that street he hotrods up to the place where cars are doing that hard right turn and plays chicken with them and begins his merge from the right. A merge from the right is a power move and almost always wins. His move put him ahead of at least fifty cars and busses and made a lot of people very unhappy, but it is a game of who can drive the route the fastest.

We finally got across the bridge and with some more power plays we were one bus stop from where I wanted to get off. Get ready for another power play from the right. Leading up to the bus stop the street was jammed with traffic. Along the side of the street was a rather long parking lot that was in the final stages of construction and was empty of cars. There were people walking there and riding bicycles, but they are no match for a mad bus driver. As soon as he got to the parking lot he pulls over the curb and across the sidewalk and again hotrods to the far end of the parking lot, with people running for their lives in every direction. At the end of the parking lot he pulls across the side walk and over the curb again and pushes his way into that right lane of traffic. Nobody could match our forward progress and probably nobody was hated by more people on the road than he was. He is the kind of bus driver you don’t play chicken with when you are trying to cross the street. He won’t run over you, but he will physically push you down the road as you try to get across in front of him. Don’t ask me how I know. It is a great team sport of people against people with machines. The game has leaders and followers. There is something about being point man and having a growing group of people follow you across a busy street. Never be so aggressive that the group doesn’t follow you. Never end up being alone. This is a team sport. And whatever you do, don’t try to play this game in America if you want to live to see another day.