Bus Lanes Pointless Because Passengers In No Rush, New Study Discovers
2017-01-17
Rotherham’s bus lanes look set to become a thing of the past after a study failed to find a single passenger who needed to be anywhere anytime soon.
The study, headed up by Professor Joseph Carr, head of Applied Passenger Logistics at the University of Central Mexborough, looked at hundreds of bus journeys spread over the second half of 2017 and concluded that there was nobody travelling by bus who was in any sort of hurry.
“Passengers fell into three basic groups,” said Professor Carr “the elderly, for whom a long journey is an opportunity to punctuate their unfocussed and empty existance, students, who have time to burn, and the unemployed who, are by definition, less busy than the rest of us and shouldn’t be rewarded for their inactivity by access to legalised queue jumping.”
Professor Carr believes the local council have their policy upside down “Its the car drivers who need to get around quickly – that’s why they bought a car you see – and yet they are penalised in favour of people who have got all the time in the world” Professor Carr is now calling on the local authority to have a complete rethink with bus lanes being scrapped and replaced by bus gates. “Buses would need to stop at bus gates on all busy routes,” he told us “and only be allowed to proceed when all car drivers are safely on their way to their destination.”
To gauge the opinion of bus passengers we spoke to Bessie Smith, 86, from Herringthorpe as she got off a number 667 in the town centre. When we told her of Professor Carr’ s plans she said “Immigrants…and gypsies. It’s disgusting. And tattoos. I don’t like tattoos….or motorbikes” but it wasn’t immediately clear whether her hearing aid was switched on.
