Stories From The Road, Episode 1.

It looks like I’m a few days late with my blog post. Doing loads of kilometres and being on a busy schedule I decided to make today’s post a different one.

So ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you…

*Drum roll*

Stories from the road

It’s almost 6 PM and I’m writing this from a hotel room in Prague, Czech Republic. No idea for how long I’ve been on this trip. A few days? I finished my first one and jumped onto the next one, almost the same day. And before that? I don’t remember.

Anyways, why I’m telling you this is to make up an excuse for posting late.

Prologue – Friday Evening

I was returning from a 3 day high-school trip. But there was one HUGE problem.

The coach had to be parked 4 hours from home. That would’ve been alright if we weren’t supposed to come back late in the night. Even with that the calculations showed that I should somehow make it on the 11 PM bus. However, as it always is, shit happens when you least expect it.

Just as we leave the town, at 4 PM the teachers remember that the kids didn’t have any lunch. Fair enough, I get it. So we pull over at a restaurant just outside the town. Luckily everybody ordered fried chicken and chips so the food got out pretty fast.

But with a group of 57 people you need to think about some other stuff too – 57 people will need to use the restroom. So by the time everybody did their duty (get it) and paid, it was after 5:30 PM. With a 5 hour drive in front of us, it was evident I wouldn’t make it back in time for that bus. Luckily, there ended up being one at midnight.

A few stops and unloads later, I finally arrive and call a cab to wait for me at the parking. I’m there at 11:35.

11:40.. still waiting

11:45.. still waiting (just to note, the bus was at 11:55).

Dude finally rocks up a few minutes later. Unfortunately there’s red light cameras everywhere so we couldn’t really drive Taxi style. I just throw the money too him and MISS the freaking bus by a split second. So what would one do in this situation?

1. Rent a room and go on a morning bus
2. Get in another cab and chase the bus down the avenue

Of course, I went with option number 2, which was stressful but also adrenaline inducing. After a few intersections we actually managed to catch up and we were driving alongside the bus. I lowered my window down and “asked” (more like yelled) if he could stop at the next bus station.

So he did, which I’m grateful for, and I go up and find a seat, which was also the last free seat on the bus.

Why I’m not returning to route driving

And let me tell you something. The trip reminded me EXACTLY why I’m not driving routes anymore. I don’t care how this is going to sound and you can call me what you want. But when I see all the kinds of passengers there are, not only would I want to quit, but I’d want to move. To a different planet.

Just to remind you, this is Europe we’re speaking of. Public transport is used by “rich” and poor, young and old, drunk and drugged. One thing that most of them have in common is…

…you guessed it – Disrespect

Whenever I write about rude passengers I mention entitlement.

“Why can’t you stop here?”

“Why can’t you drive us there, does anybody even control the logging device?”

“Who cares about the speed limit, nobody’s going to fine you”

“I spent all my money on cigarettes, can you give me a discount?”

And I’m sure you’ve had a variety of other questions asked.

It’s funny because everyone is expecting you to do favours they didn’t pay for, but if you were to ask them to do the same at their own job – they’d be stumped!

Sometimes I’m not sure, do people like this think of us drivers as idiots they can fool around with, or are some people actually that dumb. I guess we’ll never know.

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

The reason I’m talking about this is because on the ride, one of the passengers got ill all of a sudden.

We stopped at the nearest rest stop waiting for the ambulance to arrive. While we were waiting, some of the wankers (no better word for them) were insisting that everything was alright (and that the person was faking) and the drivers should continue their journey.

After the paramedics had arrived and took the person with them, some others kept making rude remarks of what happened. It just makes me sad how pathetic people have become.

Whether you’re driving charter or routes, you’ll agree with me because there’s people like this everywhere.

First I thought it was just a thing in my country, but nah. It looks like the people who usually don’t ride buses but take them out of necessity or when they’re travelling once or twice a year are usually the worst. They have an attitude of “I paid for this, so you have to do whatever I tell you”. This goes from leaving all kinds of trash on the bus to having a disregard to our driving times on the logging device, aka the “so what you started early this morning, you’ve been resting for hours so you should be able to drive us at midnight”.

Of course, it’s never the whole group that’s like this, its always one or two smartasses everyone else is suffering because of.

How to deal with it? Just give them the number of your boss and let them pester him/her.

They’ll shut up, don’t worry.

Time for loved ones – Saturday

I roll up my driveway around 5 AM on saturday. Jumped straight into bed, kissed my missus and fell asleep.

After a few hours of sleep and then we went on a field trip. I decided to take her to a lake nearby and grab some lunch afterwards. Yeah, we spent some money but who cares. That’s the moments you enjoy in life, the little things you remember.

When I started working as a driver full time back in 2019, I had zero social life so I spent a lot of time at work AND with my colleagues afterwards. I was single for a few years until I met my partner who I’ve been living with for a year now.

And you know what? Working this job I’ve realised that most drivers can’t wait to get away from their families. I’m not talking about working hard to provide for your children, I’m literally talking about people who are BEGGING to go on a long trip so they don’t have to see anybody.

Why?

I’ve got no idea. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons why I’ve started Thrive2Drive is to build a community of drivers who will help each other with advice on how they’ve dealt with, among others, family matters. I’m still a bit young, but even I can give my five cents on what is working for me.

And what is working for me is being present.

When you’re together, don’t think about work. Don’t think about the parking situation tomorrow or if you should leave 15 minutes earlier to avoid the morning traffic. Dedicate time to your partner and show them all you care about is them.

The worst that can happen is you getting disrupted by a phone call from work leading you to think about work the rest of the day. Your partner will be pissed off at you and good luck getting a good night’s sleep for the morning drive after that.

The more I’m reading this and writing this, the more I see how all over the place this story is and I’ll be surprised if anybody reads this. But at least I’ll know what you guys don’t like. Anyways, to continue the day – we went to bed around 10 PM, I woke up an hour later, got dressed and went to pick up my colleague who was supposed to drive me to Germany.

It’s 10:20 AM and I’m finishing this blog post from a café in Eisenstadt, Austria. Once again, sorry for the wait guys!

See you soon and I hope you enjoyed this episode of stories from the road!