Why Are Bus Drivers Everywhere Quitting Their Jobs?

Being a bus driver or a coach driver is one of the best jobs there is nowadays. At least that’s what I tell myself most of the time.

You’re the captain of a large vehicle, a king of the road. You see plenty of incredible places you otherwise wouldn’t even think about visiting (and some places others only dream of visiting). Comfy hotel rooms and free food wherever you go. Not to mention all the interesting people you meet.

People outside the industry may look down upon us from time to time, but they’re just jealous.

I’m going to let you in on a little bit of a backstory about me here. I live in Croatia, which for those of you who don’t know – is a small country on the Mediterranean, right next to Italy. When I was a kid I never had any role models nor had I any idea what I wanted to do when I grow up. Time was ticking though because I had to choose a vocational highschool at age 15.

So, to avoid maths (which I still hate, except when it comes to counting my next paycheck), I enroll into a 4 year tourism and hospitality programme. However as i commuted to school by bus every single day, I got to see a lot of interesting bus makes you’d rarely see anywhere else. Think anything from 1980s Mercs and Yugoslavian TAMs to brand new western models. This is when I got the wish to become a bus driver, which as you can see hasn’t yet faded.

What’s the point of this story?

Depending on your own life experiences, you’ve become a driver for different reasons. It can be the love for travel, money, bad grades at school and who knows what else. Whatever the reason is, the reasons for bus drivers quitting their job can be 10 times stronger.

I chased this career because I fell in love with it (my parents weren’t very satisfied with my decision). Love still isn’t a strong enough thing when you wake up at 3 AM for a drive. Neither is it a strong enough thing when you see you’re taken advantage of.

This leads me to the main topic of this week’s blog post – Why do Bus Drivers Consider Quitting Their Job?

Research

Recently I stumbled upon a research paper from Sweden. The researchers asked a sizeable number of bus drivers about the reasons why they considered quitting their jobs. Each could choose multiple answers. While the research paper is indeed from 1982, as a bus driver I can freely say we still run into most of these problems today.

Credit:

B. Gardell, G. Aronsson and K. Barkloff: The working environment for local public transport personnel
(Stockholm, Swedish Work Environment Fund, 1982).

Source: Bus drivers: Occupational stress and stress prevention by Michiel A. J. Kompier (1996.)

These are the most common reasons bus drivers considered quitting their job.

1. To Have Better Working Hours – 71%

This one does not surprise me a tiny bit. Thinking about it, only workers in LOCAL public transport have somewhat normal working hours, most of the time. Days are long and more common than not, we start in the dark and come home in the dark. Days pass and so do years. Kids grow up, parents grow old.

I’ve been working as a charter/school bus driver at the same company for 5 years now. Sometimes my days are 5 hours long, sometimes they’re 15 hours long. What bugs me the most however is that I’m unable to plan ahead. If I get my schedule 2 days in advance in the high season, I’m a happy man. Otherwise every day off I get I devote to my loved ones.

Some of us also have screwed up sleeping patterns because of it, hats off to all the drivers doing night routes for intercity and international bus carriers here. Good luck getting that back to normal.

2. THE JOB IS TOO STRENUOUS, STRESSFUL AND RUSHED – 52%

There is no bus or coach driver who didn’t have to explain their supervisor or dispatcher that they can’t make it somewhere on time. Whether it’s due to the unrealistic schedule or last-minute problems on the road, there are different factors which make us feel very pressured.

Don’t know about you guys, but getting out of service work has no doubt increased my life expectancy for 10 years.

This photo above pretty much sums up what service work is. On one hand you’re on a busy schedule, on the other hand there will be 3 passengers asking about if X Y bus goes at X Y time (which has nothing to do with your route) and if they report you to management, you’ll get a call. Not even going to bring safe driving into the picture. All while your own passengers are in a rush to get somewhere. Brrr, I feel annoyed just thinking about it.

And if you don’t have worries about having to run on time on a busy schedule, you’re probably familiar with cleaning your coach after a drive.

3. PAY TOO LOW – 43%

Not sure about you, but being a tour coach driver is among the last jobs where you can get a pretty good paycheck without having a high education in my country. Truth be told, we spend more time on our job than most other people, plus, even when we’re off there’s still a chance we’ll get a call if something comes up.

You can say no, but the next guy won’t and guess who’s going to get to drive american tourists next time. Still think it’s you? Think twice.

Service work or school buses however are a different line of work. It’s a huge stress and responsibility (especially when driving children), and it should definitely be paid much more than it is right now.

4. Working Hours Led To Family Problems – 35%

Imagine this:

It’s 10 PM. You come home after a 12 hour shift and ask your missus “what’s for dinner?”. She tells you she had no time to make anything because she was busy cleaning the house and taking care of the kids.

You get upset and so does she. Rightfully so. When we’re working, we usually don’t take other people’s jobs or obligations into account. We think our job is the toughest and nothing else matters. I’ve had this occur a few times with my partner and it’ll probably happen again.

Taking other people’s feelings and obligations into consideration isn’t an easy thing. Doing it at 10 PM after a 12 hour shift is even more difficult.

Arguments like these happen in the daily. I’m not even going to start to talk about the fact that you’re on the road for most of your life and your wife and children need you with them.

Unfortunately, if you love the job, you can’t really get out of this one. However you can make it easier for you and for them. Remember to facetime them once or twice a day, and most importantly – be fully present when talking with them. Don’t think about other work obligations or the parking situation for tommorrow.

Here’s a book which helped me a little bit. It’ll make it easier both for you and your partner.

5. Health Complaints – 32%

Here’s another one that doesn’t surprise a bit. Being a bus driver is a pretty sedentiary job most of the time.

Bus drivers usually complained about these health problems:

1. Musculo-skeletal problems (lower part of the back, neck,shoulders, upper part of the back, knees)
2. Psychological problems (fatigue, tension, mental overload)
3. Stomach and intestinal disorders
4. Sleeping problems

I’m personally “lucky” to have experienced only psychological problems (and a bit of upper back and neck pain after long drives). My work burnout was so bad I had to quit work at the time, otherwise I would have wounded up in a nutterhouse and not writing these blogs for you guys. By the way, we’ve surpassed a thousand monthly readers in March and April already. Thank you for your support!

While I’d love to go more deeply about health complaints, we should leave it for another time as there is plenty to say about this topic. I’ll also ask you guys for your opinions and experiences on facebook very soon.

6. Anxious About Violence And Threats Of Assault – 30%

One of the worst things about service work/public transport is violence towards bus drivers. Whether it’s just because they don’t want to pay the fare or they’re piss drunk, passengers (or in this case – morons) are threatening bus drivers daily.

Some companies fight this by training bus drivers on how to react in these situations. In some countries a public transport bus driver is a civil servant, having the same privileges and rights as a police officer, for example. And some other companies do nothing, of course.

It’s no surprise bus drivers are quitting their job. Public transport salaries really aren’t enough for everything they go through.

Luckily, in most of the cases the threats and violence are verbal. Here’s a few tips on de-escalation.

I used to work in public transport for a short while. Didn’t have any real threats towards me but I eventually did grow tired being the bad guy in front of everybody’s eyes. Fare is too expensive – my fault. Ride is too long – my fault. No discount for children – my fault.

What a joke.

7. Dislike The Company’s General Attitude To Staff – 26%

This usually happens when the supervisors/dispatchers/management have never been drivers or haven’t seen any field work. Usually this is the case with larger companies as small companies more often than not start with a driver purchasing his first bus after a while.

Having a supervisor which is or was once a driver leads to a much better relationship in the company and makes drivers feel more understood and taken care of. In companies like these, drivers truly are appreciated as the main asset of a company, despite them having to do more work and duties on their jobs.

8. Want More Interesting Duties – 26%

Ah yes, the everlasting issue of duty disposition.

Here where I lived, the good service routes were the one where you could pocket the most money. Afterwards when the company would go bankrupt, it was the fault of “economic transition” and not of everybody and their mother stealing whenever possible. Funnily enough it was so widespread that you could supposedly even bribe your supervisor to get a “more profitable” route.

In modern times these problems are gone and it actually comes up to drivers being sick of driving the same routes all the time. I’m all in favour of switching drivers on routes, both for the good of the driver and for the good of the company. Not only will the driver not get bored after a while, but this also opens a possibility for companies to reward drivers who are more economic with fuel consumption on all the routes!

Charter work is a bit different and the trouble of better drives is real here. Why?

Better drives > Better tips > More money at the end of the month

Imagine two drivers in a charter company. One had 20 school trips and 5 cruise ship charters. The other one had 15 cruise ship charters and 10 school trips. With a school trip ending up in a messy coach and whatever you find between the seats for tips, and an average cruise ship charter tipping at 50$, it doesn’t take much to think twice about who is going to be happier when payday comes.

9. Problems With Taking Care Of Children – 6%

Only a small amount of bus drivers considered quitting their job because they weren’t able to find somebody to take care of their children.

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That pretty much sums up this post. But I am interested in you. Did you ever change companies, or did you consider quitting your career as a bus or coach driver? If so, why? Reading your comments is awesome so feel free to talk about your own experiences!

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