Up north it's customary for people to thank the driver when they leave the bus. Do this here and your fellow passengers might look at you as if you had dog poo on your head. Is driving a bus that much of a thankless job?
London's bus drivers spend hours in traffic, and when they run late as a result they're often faced with complaints from commuters. At night when the roads have eased up there's a different set of perils - inebriated passengers who've forgotten which pocket their Oyster is in, rowdy revellers in the mood for arguments, and in the worst cases the emissions of bodily fluids onto seats.
Buses carry six million people each day. It is London's cheapest form of transport, and a great way to do a spot of sightseeing. Consider the 88, which travels from Camden Town to Tottenham Court Road, down Regent Street past Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, the Houses of Parliament, Tate Britain and over the Thames, before ending at Clapham Common. That's most of the top sights for only £1.50.
One major irritant is when a bus zooms past because it's full, particularly when you've been waiting for twenty minutes in the rain. However drivers are penalised for carrying too many people. For each person standing past their shoulder they can be fined £60 and have three points taken off their licence, which goes for their car as well as bus licence.
They rarely get as much media coverage as London Underground staff, yet they save the day when there is a tube strike, as uncomfortable as the buses become when accomodating the extra millions of passengers.
Last summer they too went on strike. Backed by trade union Unite, they asked for a single agreement across all the private bus operators to increase their salary - which can start from as little as £17k - to a more acceptable £28k a year to compensate for the 38 hours a week they spend behind the wheel.
However all this could be a thing of the past if Culture and Digital Economy Minister Ed Vaizey gets his way. He's proposing automated 'robo-buses', which would put the livelihood of the capital's 27,000 bus drivers at risk.
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