Driving a bus will give you new appreciation for our ETS drivers
I’ve ridden roller-coasters and hiked through some steep gorges — but driving big hulking pieces of metal is not really my thing.
So, when I was assigned to drive a city bus and write about it, my stomach knotted in fear. The Edmonton Transit Service holds an annual Transit Skills Challenge where non-drivers — councillors, city officials and media — navigate a 12.2-metre (40-foot) bus through an obstacle course around the Centennial Garage on Ellerslie Road. The event, in its 43rd year, was held Saturday.
“It’s a great opportunity for them to show their skill and a good opportunity for us to learn what it takes to drive a bus,” said ETS branch manager Eddie Robar. “It gives a whole new appreciation of manoeuvring the bus through the city.”
Professional drivers, as many as 116, were signed up for a serious skills competition beginning Saturday afternoon and continuing Sunday. The winner of the weekend’s course will go on to compete in an international “roadeo” next year in Louisville, Ky., May 17-21.
The obstacle course included a right turn, going through an S, backing up, navigating a diminishing clearance course and then making a left turn.
I failed my driving test in Texas twice. Third time’s the charm, they say, and it was for me.
It was a festive atmosphere at the garage.
Paul Parmar, who’s been with the ETS for 23 years, was my instructor. His calm demeanour and jovial, light attitude was the opposite of everything I felt.
“Just ease your foot off the brake slowly,” he said after I got into the bus and tugged on the seat belt so hard that it stuck for a few seconds. The bus moved.
Phew.
My confidence went up by a few nanometres.
At the right turn I knocked down a few cones. Then came the S (serpentine) challenge. Slithering a 12.2-metre bus between bright orange cones is a tall task. Parmar asked me to stop the bus while one of the volunteers tugged a cone that had become stuck somewhere in the front wheel well.
Sigh.
But then something surprising happened.
For someone who couldn’t parallel park (twice), and avoids it like the plague now, I managed to reverse the bus and pull out without knocking over anything.
Oh joy.
Next was the diminishing barrel course where the width becomes narrower as you go forward, and has to be driven through at 30 km/h. You really feel the power of the steel beast as you hit the gas.
I was told I scraped just one barrel.
And the last bit where I turned left was nicely done, Parmar said.
The course does give you an appreciation for what bus drivers do and how much stamina is needed, not to mention endless patience.