Bizarre NJ Bus Story Reminds Me Of A Fun Bus Driver I Once Met

I was reading this article about how a NJ bus driver decided to take his passengers on a bit of a frolic, resulting in what is normally a 45 minute trip taking over two hours. I got a little bit of a chuckle out of it, wondering what the real story was, but then it made me remember one of the funnest bus drivers I’ve ever met.

He was a driver on a route I used to take daily to go to and from college. He’d occasionally do things like pull up to where someone was standing on the curb, open the bus door, hold out the handset from the bus radio (the one that communicated with the transit company base), and say: “It’s for you.” When the person on the curb would sputter in confusion, he’d close the doors and drive off.

However, that kind of incident wasn’t what reminded me of the above NJ driver. There was one time that someone rode my bus and told this driver that they needed to transfer to another bus. He was good enough to call ahead to make sure the second bus didn’t leave before he got there, but the second bus took off early anyway. However, this driver didn’t take it lying down. He told everyone to hold on and proceeded to chase the second bus, driving about six blocks out of his way, until he caught it and the passenger was able to make the connection. The whole thing only took a couple of minutes and I think everyone on my bus was so impressed that this driver had done this for a passenger that no one was upset about the detour. I still got home on time.

Anyway, I’m fairly sure that this isn’t what was going on for the NJ bus driver, considering that the article reports that he yelled at passengers when they asked to get off after he drove them beyond the bus terminal. Still, it reminded me and I thought I’d share.