Any current/former motor coach drivers here?

Greetings......
I Worked for MEARS TRANSPORTATION.....ORLANDO, FL back in (2000something) Mostly Disney Pass. 13.50hr plus Tips...(30,40 daily)
Clean Job...until you have to deal with.....60 Lugagge Bags pieces...PER TRIP.
Dealing with "Disney Humans"...requires an exceptional "People's skilled"..individual. If you are Not patience, it will get you in Trouble fast. Overall a Cool job...for a while. Then you have "CHARTERS"....(whole different Ball game). Good Luck..Happy Trails..!!!!

 

For passenger carriers it still is 8 hour breaks, and they can still split them with only 2 hours off-duty. The 10 and 14 hour clocks do not apply to passenger carriers. They still run under the pre-2003 rules.

I ran for Shortline in the 90's, wouldn't go back if it was the only job I could get. SLF sucks!

Entertainment coaches are not really any better. I have 25 years as a lighting and live sound tech, side gig, and it is common to have real dirt bag celebrities on those coaches. You are their babysitter, cook, housemaid and everything else.

Oh, and bout the post regarding riding behind the bus in cars, yes they do that, and traveling as a bus driver is off-duty, in the industry they call it "cushioning", meaning you are holding down the seat cushion. Quite common to ride with a driver to a distant terminal then hop behind the wheel and go! When I was with Shortline (Hudson Transit and now Coach USA) it was common to cushion up to Binghamton, NY from Mahwah, NJ which is about a 7 hour route, take a two hour break in the terminal then do the PABT (NYC) run down.

 

I had a opportunity twice in my life, first was with a formal Maryland based coach tours. I carried a Class A in those days which allowed me to touch everything except motorcycles and the like. The Owner to make a long repeated story short had a real problem that a deaf man wearing hearing aids same as she wore glasses up there qualifies to drive 50 souls in her buses. That interview did not go well despite careful efforts to present evidence above and way beyond normal paperwork in defense of my hearing ability and the green book which prescribed the DOT requirements versus two audiology charts one a week old other two months old. The interviewer owner tried to take another path by asking me how I would handle unruly people in the bus, I told her I grew up in rough places in Baltimore and can and have handled people who got rough a time or two and it wont be the last time. All I need is the company policy on that problem and we are good to go. What else?

She got purple. Told me I have all the answers. I answered, yes. and backed by evidence too. This is a opportunity or we are wasting each other's time very completely that day. Two hours of what I consider a interrogation in that office. It would be decades before the second opportunity came up much later in life with a CDL and passenger endorsement in hand. I don't even know why I bothered to carry that one but it was a written test easily disposed of and stamped along with the rest on that CDL with the exception for Hazmat which I disposed of a year ago. This was with a 40 soul church bus and I actually had that green DOT regulations book during that converstation (Actually several) with church leadership who saw a opportunity to purchase this nice airride coach (Provost I believe) and I would be the first assigned man to take care of it and run church groups where assigned with it.

We came very close to completing that particular path. There was no discrimination, no problem and no stress anywhere. One of the leaders who advocated that particular acquisition of that particular coach from another Church which did not want to deal with it anymore in face of declining membership while ours were growing. That leader passed on. And with that the concept of a large coach before the Church could complete a formal vote to see if it will approve buying the thing and going through what has to be done to put plates on that and get it into service with me in charge of it all.

Ultimately the church bought a pair of small passenger vans so that almost anyone can hop into it and go which was I think much much more of a flexible issue than having a much larger vehicle and like three people in the entire body capable of driving it. I am kind of sorry that did not work out because we put 4 months of our time towards that until the death of that Elder.

Two different opportunities in life. Both completely opposites of each other in experiences and I always say this. If something does not work out for myself and those whom I love and call friends, I do not worry about it too much because the good Lord tends to keep doors we must not pass through closed tight. Follow me?

When I carefully consider that I have absolutely ridden my very last greyhound back in 1996 after a particularly difficult passenger set inside that thing I am not sorry that I did not get into buses too much. I would and am a much better trucker than a bus. Although I do tip my hat to many who do a good job. But there are problems more often because you are dealing with people instead of say medicines.

 

Good luck. The passenger endorsement is simple enough, dealing with freight that talks back well that is a whole different story. Keep us posted. I know I couldn't do it, started in school buses then coaches finally settled on tow trucks and car carriers.

 

Laying on the floor ROTF talking with freight that talks back.

I remember one incident in which two teen ticket holders overslept at least one or two stops past where they wanted off. Well here we are in charlotte NC I believe in the core banking district downtown bus stop on a sat with no souls around at all late at night. (The one in which they close everything at 5 pm sharp...) and the driver spent sometime in the back shoveling the mouthy brats off the bus while we all listened in.

It's a small thing with freight that talks back. HA....

 

“ I want to die quietly in my sleep like grandpa, not screaming and hollering like all the passengers on his bus”