Bus drivers January 7, 2009

Now that I have a job, I ride the bus in Jerusalem much more often, and I have noticed something.

 

The bus drivers in this country are crazy- period. Especially in Jerusalem.

 

Since I’ve gotten to this city, I have had to learn a few things:

 

1.  If you don’t know the Hebrew word for driver, then you will after your first bus ride, because not one ride on a bus is without someone yelling “NAAHAAG!” from the back of the bus because the driver is too impatient to use the back mirrors to make sure everyone has exited the bus. One time, there were three to four “NAAHAAG!”s for one stop because the driver kept closing the door every 5 seconds because the bus was so packed he couldn’t see people were trying to make their way out… or pretended not to see…

 

2. Bus drivers will not wait for you to get on before they start driving.  One time, a bus stopped for me and I asked the driver if he was going to the central bus station. Without looking at me, he nodded yes, and then took his foot off the brake pedal and start rolling. I ran a few steps and hopped on. Another time, the bus driver started rolling as I had one foot on the bus and one still on the ground, and I almost tripped.

 

3. If you’re not sitting when the driver starts driving, hold on tight! It’s going to be a jerky ride. During most bus rides, I find myself being propelled down the aisle, and I basically turn my body and let myself be swung into my seat. If I don’t get a seat, I always hold on to something with both hands.

 

4. The bus drivers here have no mercy for the disabled. I’ve seen blind people get on and barely make it past the bus driver before he slams on the gas, and they go flying, usually stopped by the help of another passenger. One time, the bus driver did it twice to one poor blind guy as he was trying to get onto the front seat*, to the point that the exasperated man yelled, “NAAHAAG, why?!” and the driver just ignored him and offered no apology.

 

5. Bus drivers hate eachother. In New York, I was amused by the tradition in which bus drivers raised their hands in recognition of one another when they would pass eachother on the road. Overall, there seemed to be a level of respect for other bus drivers when a cluster of bus emerged during traffic. Here, bus drivers honk and cut eachother off all the time. Let’s not even go into the story of the tour bus driver who drove down a ravine and killed two dozen Russian tourists- the accusation against him is that he was so mad about getting cut off by another bus driver, he was driving wrecklessly. 

 

One story I can’t make sense of happened to me as I got on the bus after work one day. I stepped on and thought, “Wow, my first female bus driver!” However, for some reason this woman gave me the feeling that her live-in boyfriend is a bus driver but he felt too sick to go to work, so she figured she’d just do it for him. Bus drivers here don’t have a uniform, but she looked like she just finished watching a Dynasty marathon on TV. She wore a bright red velour jumpsuit with lipstick to match. Her stomach reached over above and around the wheel.

 

I gave her my card to punch, and without looking at me, she made a wave gesture to motion me along. Was she really not a legitimate driver or could she not wrap her fake nails around the hole puncher? I’m still not sure. She braved her way through Jerusalem rush hour traffic, and made such illegal moves that one car drove alongside her to yell at her. Once we approached campus, she honked passed other buses, and once we approached the final stop, I pressed the stop button, which I soon realized was silly because it’s the last stop and obviously she would let us all off there. The last stop approached… and passed… as she gathered speed. “NAAHHAAG!” called out the remaining students on the bus, and she halted, although not immediately. I looked up front toward her, and in the reflection of the rearview mirror, I saw her big red mouth smile.

 

Maybe it was an embarrassed smile, but I’m not sure she is capable of that emotion. Maybe it was the lipstick, but the smile looked sadistic. Did she purposely pass the last stop as a silent protest against my pressing the stop button, or did she just plum forget to stop the bus in anticipation of finishing her (boyfriend’s?) shift and returning home to new Israeli Big Brother episodes?

 

 I just don’t get it.

 

* The front seats on Israeli buses are reserved for the elderly or handicapped, but they are so inconvenient because people need to climb a big step to get onto them and there is about 2 inches of leg room. Just try mounting or descending from the thing when the bus is in motion!