I’ve already blogged a bus experience or two before. Today though has to be the best bus experience of all.

Back in Australia I’ve watched, a helpless passenger, as a bus driver stopped his bus in the middle of the road, opened the doors and started swearing his head off at a pedestrian. I’ve known two people to get hit in their cars by careless and speeding buses and I’ve nearly been run off the road myself by a bus.

This evening I met the polar opposite of all of those bus drivers…

After getting up first thing in the morning and working a looooooooooong day, I was starving and keen to get home. Whenever I finish at 9 I have to wait at least half an hour for my next bus home. There are earlier ones but they don’t go all the way which would mean walking 20 minutes home on what was now a not only dark but rainy night.

So I got to the bus stop and sat patiently waiting for my bus. Glancing every now and then at the sign above the bus stop, with it’s little yellow dotted lights spelling out the various buses and their progress towards us. The ever impatient and diverse group of people at the waiting place.

When the sign declared that I had 0 minutes left to wait for my bus I rose from my book and seat, shot a quick glance down the road to be sure that indeed there was a bus coming, and moved up the platform ready to get in near the driver (my preference for safe bus riding at night).

No sooner had I sat down and the bus had moved off than I thought ‘hmm, better just check where the bus is going’ at which point, of course, I realised that I had blindly got onto the wrong bus.

Fail.

I got out again at the next stop only to see the bus I had meant to get on go past the intersection further down the road.

Knowing the Flash would have trouble making it to the stop in time I didn’t bother running, but still ignored the little red men at the cross walk and defiantly (albeit carefully) crossed without their permission. When you’ve missed your bus it almost doesn’t matter how long there is till the next one, you just want to be at that stop and be sure not to miss it too!

Now I had two options, flag down the next available bus, in about 15 minutes, which would take me half way home leaving me to walk in the rain. Or wait where I was another half hour for the bus which would take me all the way.

By this time it was after 10 so I hopped on the next available bus and asked the bus driver if as a special favour he might drop me off just a little bit further down so that I didn’t have to walk all the way. He agreed. Yay!

That, however, is not what makes said bus driver the hero of this story. After letting the other people out of the bus, this wonderful saviour of damsels in distress proceeded to drive me right home!

An unprecedented show of kindness from a bus driver. I would write a letter to the bus company but I’m afraid it would get him in trouble. So here is my little shout out to the wonderful and kind bus driver who got me home safely, earlier and less rained on tonight.

Thank you!