No bus drivin forum. So here goes.

Here in Ohio back in the good old days of the dual speed limit the charter buses were exempted from the 55 mile an hour semi trucks and school buses had to go. That dual speed limit was stupid, well that's all ancient history now, but the sign used to say 55MPH Trucks and Non Commercial Buses. You'd see all the charter bus companies hammer down.

I think there excuse was were on a schedule and we got to go, we don't know this, but the bus companies may have a powerful bus lobby, lobbying for them down at the state building...

 

My friend sent me a picture once he was in the bus pit at Commerica Park in Detroit, MI and while all the buses were parked the Michigan State Police DOT unit rolled up and started doing inspections.

 

I'm gonna have to get my passenger endorsement to drive our church bus. Now I have a class A with hazmat and tanker but I have to pretty much do the entire process over for the passenger endorsement

 

Sounds like a boring gig

 

I don't know about Greyhound, but I drive motorcoach for a private Charter/tour bus company. Personally I would not want to deal with the type of 'clientele' that linehaul bus companies such as Greyhound generally attract. You get much better quality groups driving charters or tours.

If a group wants to run a long trip straight through, we stage drivers along the route at roughly 8 hour driving distances. We always stay in hotels.

Commonly a long trip involves a first leg driver, a middle leg driver and a tour leg driver. Or more or less depending on the distance of the trip. The middle and tour leg drivers drive to a hotel with a company car near the designated switch point a day ahead of the trip so they are well rested when the coach gets to them.

The first leg driver typically returns the following day to base, then comes back to the same switch point a day ahead of the return leg. The middle leg driver usually stays put where they switched with the tour leg driver until the return trip. All this driver positioning is done using company cars, so you switch from car to coach or vice versa depending which leg you are driving. An added benefit is that you always have transportation if you are sitting somewhere on a middle leg.

Middle legs can be like a paid vacation, especially if you land in a nice place. Free to do whatever you want on your 'off' days, with a vehicle provided and still getting paid a daily rate plus meal per diems.

Driving tour legs can also be like a vacation, especially if the tour is to a nice destination. You sure get to visit a lot of fun and interesting places and often times get to participate in the same activities as the group.

A lot of fun, but not really a get-rich-quick scheme. My advice would be don't get into it if making big money is your primary motivation....

 

And the 'live cargo' comment isn't necessarily a bad thing. I regularly drive for a number of University women's sports teams, by special request

Besides being a competent, smooth and safe driver all you really need to be is friendly and polite. In very little time you can build your own "book of business". Groups will repeatedly request you as a driver if they like you and once they get to know you a bit.

I have met a lot of great people in this gig. Personally I couldn't even imagine driving 'regular cargo'. That to me would be very boring...

 

I had to take 2 CDL tests one for passenger bus and one for big truck. I took the passenger bus test first and actually it helps because the pre-trip is pretty much the same about 85% the same there's a few different things on the bus, like seats and emergency exits you want to check that all seats are secured and that the emergency exits work properly with proper lights and sounders and the handle moves allowing the emergency door to open and shut freely.

There is a difference between passenger bus and school bus though. For church bus passenger bus endorsement is all you need, for school bus though you need a school bus endorsement and they are going to ask you questions about the 8 ways and crossing kids across the street and so on and so fourth. I don't have school, bus, but I do have passenger bus. Any truck driving school you go to if you want to get a Class B CDL they just put you in the bus training program and you get it like that which makes sense.

 

I asked my friend about that and he said exactly right here what you said drivers are sent out ahead and as far as the people go he said in his years of doing charters never really had a problem he said the people were usually always pretty nice and private charter and tour group every one usually got along real well.

He did a lot of 8th grade school trips to Washington, DC he said to me "yeah I'm starting to get pretty good at Washington, DC I have some of it down."

 

I can't say I ever had a really "bad" group, unless you count drunken NFL fans on a charter, especially a busload of drunken lawyers. But even they are a lot of fun and generally pretty good with the gratuities.

With the past year alone, I've been to 34 of the lower 48 states, all '3' coasts plus 3 Canadian provinces. I've seen a lot of beautiful country back roads and tourist destinations, not just miles of interstate. Not to mention plenty of pretty tight and challenging spots, where no motorcoach should ever go LOL. But it's a great feeling to get a round of applause from your passengers when you just pulled off the "impossible" maneuver. Or compliments about how "amazing" of a driver you are as your 'live cargo' is getting off the coach. I have to admit that kind of stuff makes my head swell a bit

One other huge factor regarding coach driving for me: NONE of our trips are under forced dispatch. We can say 'yay or nay' to any trip, even as full-timers. Although I have to admit there is sometimes a lot of arm twisting that goes on...

Having it otherwise would be a dealbreaker for me. Although ya gotta keep in mind it's important to keep the dispatcher happy. So you sometimes need to take the bad with the good. They remember who to call first when the fun trips come up

 

Well I have found a DMV in another county that is going to mark all areas as passed issue a new license with passenger added on.