Bus Travel Not What it Used to Be [View All]

[Sukie1941]

A couple of summers ago I decided to take a G---hound bus from Southern Oregon to the San Francisco area. I decided to take the bus to make it easier for my aunt to pick me up closer to where she lives rather than drive to the airport. (I don't drive in California! Too terrifying!)

It had been a number of years since I had traveled on a bus (other than a few trips on local busses) and I was really in for a shock.

Shocked at how filthy the bus line has become. You dare not use the on-board restrooms at all, and the So. Oregon depot was closed when I left here about 2 am. It was scary to be the only one standing outside at the time of night.

It was hard to find a seat (and I got NO help from the driver) because alot of people were sleeping across two seats.

I read on another forum recently about a guy from Australia who is a big country music fan who wanted to experience a bus trip from Texas to Nashville. He hears alot of country music talking about those lonely bus trips around the south. He sat in the back of the bus until he realized that there was a couple "starting a family" behind him. Then he moved forward.

While I was sharing this story with a neighbor recently, she told me that she and her six-year-old son took a bus from So. Oregon also to San Francisco. After the bus was on the freeway awhile, there were two very naked people in the back of the bus, not far from where she and her son sat. Those people had boarded the bus in another city. She had trouble finding other seats.

Just recently a young woman was on a Greyhound passing down Interstate 5 here on the West Coast. She was sleeping when she awoke and realized there was a man sitting next to her who had his hand in the wrong place. She fought with him and had the driver call 911 so there were police waiting for the bus at its next stop. The man escaped but police located him and he was arrested.

I won't be riding public long-haul busses any time soon, but I wonder just how safe people are, particularly women and kids. I remember as a child my parents putting me on the bus to Sacramento every summer to spend a few weeks with my cousins. No way today!

Ever get the feeling that airplanes are getting really tacky, too?

And I worry that maybe there aren't any decent people "out there" these days.