Bus Etiquette; the do's, to don'ts and the grey area

With university comes a diversity of students, young and old, licensed and unlicensed.

As I am one of the latter (unlicensed, that is) I’ve had to manoeuvre Canberra’s humble as pie transport system; yes that’s right ladies and gents, Canberra runs solely on buses.

As soon as I stepped onto the bus, as a naive first time buser, I listened to my music and 

religiously looked at my route map, hoping that I wouldn’t get lost an in a city! I dare not have thought of the consequences.

I go to the destination fine but it’s the bus etiquette on the way that has intrigued me and still does as see further examples as I continue to meet the bus on the corner ;)

For instance, when you have to sit next to someone, sometimes it is with silence and others a life story about their sons and daughters graduating and procreating. But to be honest, who wants to talk on a bus, to a total stranger? When is it alright to cut off a conversation, or to keep it afloat? How do you sense that it is completed?

And what about those stop buttons that you press to indicate that you wish to get off at the next stop? Say you sit next to someone, there comes the awkward moment when you score the coveted window seat; the holy grail of buses, and there are plenty of them! But alas, someone is next to you and the button is behind him or her, pressing the stop button seems more like a flirting move here than an innocent push of a button, and occasionally the person adjacent to yourself knows this too, giving a look of discern or just looking blandly across the bus.

There is plenty of more etiquette on the bus, because essentially it is a social environment on wheels.

Anyway, best to be off to catch this bus, and hopefully, not get lost.