My memories of the mundane details of my childhood are a little faded by now, but I am pretty certain that buses used to stop at the bus stop. The clues are there in the name of a bus stop, namely the two words 'bus' and 'stop'. This was of course in the days when each town or city had one company in charge of the bus service, nowadays there's several different companies and they have their own designated stops. A bus stopping at a bus stop is something we can no longer take for granted because if you want to get off the bus you have to ring a bell, and if you want to get on the bus you have to hold out your arm as a signal.
This leads to a problem of etiquette when you are standing at the bus stop. If nobody sticks their arm out, and nobody on the bus rings the bell to get off, then the bus passes without stopping. On the other hand, if everybody at the bus stop holds their arm out then it looks ridiculous. I keep wanting to try and get this shit organised and I feel that this is something that the bus companies should get together and make an awareness campaign out of. The job of holding out the arm should be allocated to one person at the bus stop, even if there are two buses on the way (both different companies). Good idea? Yes of course it is, so how do we work out who is responsible? Should it be the oldest person at the bus stop due to their authority or the youngest due to having more flexible joints?
Should there be a rota system in place? If you travel to work at the same time every weekday then the chances are you get the exact same bus every day, and it is likely that you see the same faces waiting there. By that logic you can organise a rota in which one person takes a week of the responsibility for stopping the bus, they could be given a title such as 'the arm'. The Arm, as they will be known, will have the job of stopping the bus at their usual stop until Friday. On Friday's journey to work (or at the stop) everyone discusses plans for the following week. It is up to you to inform The Arm of any holidays you have planned in order to avoid being handed the job on a week you won't be available, similarly you will have to phone The Arm before you ring in sick for work and inform The Arm when you are going to be back in work.
I am going to suggest this to Nottingham's bus companies and see what they think, as this is an important subject I feel and it needs sorting out.
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