A Bus Driver Tried To Kill Me

I was almost run down by a bus today. Me and at least a dozen others. In broad daylight. The driver just plowed through the intersection of Queen and Victoria Streets, even though he had a red light and we had the Green Man. And not just any Green Man either, it was one of those new fangled animated green men that walks and gives you a countdown on how many seconds you have left to cross.

Not that the Bus Driver cared. He had a schedule to keep, so fuck y'all, get out of my way, cos I'm driving a big fucking bus.

Seriously, there was no way he couldn't have known what he was doing. He wasn't going through an orange light and then it went red. It must have been red because we had the pedestrian signal telling us to Cross Now, and many of us had stepped out.

It was one of those rare moments when a Human Mass acted as One. We were all gathered outside Whitcoulls and we all saw the Green Man and we all stepped forward together. Then we all saw the bus barrelling across the intersection and we all realised it was coming for us. There was a collective gasp, and we all jumped or ran back to the footpath. There was another audible collective "Whoah!" as the bus raced past, followed by knowing looks to the stranger beside us as we all realised we'd just dodged a bullet.

Everyone was kind of stunned, but I had a camera phone and raced up the street to snap this picture and collar the driver. He had deigned to stop at the Red Lights at Lorne Street but before I could get to his window it went Green and he was off again. But not before the number of his bus was burned into my memory. 1410. The irony of the advertisement on the bus was not lost on me either. 

At 1.45pm on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2009 the driver of Bus #1410 ran a red light and almost killed or injured some pedestrians. It's not the first time it's happened, nor the second, and it won't be the last. The Bus Company doesn't really care, and nor do the Enforcement Agencies. It's happening all too frequently.

Maybe Police Minister Judith Collins should crush a few buses to get the message across.