Bus Driver Q&A (1 Viewer)

JoshYouWerLad

Top IRL Bus Driver
Sep 1, 2016
113
1
168
West Yorkshire
Hi all,

As some of you may know I work as a bus driver at a company in Leeds. Just wondering how well a Q&A will go down on here, be something for me to answer when I get board. Views are representative of me, not my employer, posts are to the best of my knowledge. Just I seem to be getting questions asking about certain buses etc and different parts of the job including the tests etc. HTH
 

P674 MLE

P674 MLE and P675 MLE are now in Preservation ! !
Apr 6, 2018
1,000
12
1,632
www.flickr.com
Hi all,

As some of you may know I work as a bus driver at a company in Leeds. Just wondering how well a Q&A will go down on here, be something for me to answer when I get board. Views are representative of me, not my employer, posts are to the best of my knowledge. Just I seem to be getting questions asking about certain buses etc and different parts of the job including the tests etc. HTH
whats your favorite bus to drive ?
 

Advertisement

LondonBuses

Map Developer
Jul 24, 2017
56
2
64
28
United Kingdom
I imagion that you will need to pass a basic maths and English test (Which is probably about 20 mins long) so a basic maths and English would be good as you work with timetables during the day and quite a lot of money so you need to know some basic maths and speaking to customers asking for help or a ticket you would need a basic understanding of English :)
 
Ok, thanks, I was really worried because I failed GCSE Maths and English twice, my teachers told me that GCSE English is more technical, I think for driving would need only something basic instead of being able to define what is a nown and something like that. Just be able to have a proper conversation with someone.

By the way, at what age can you drive a bus in London?, I´m not from the UK, so I don´t know how really works in here.
 

Road-hog123

An Orange Bus
FF Council
UKDT
Add-on London Team
Dec 10, 2015
2,287
109
3,158
Kent, UK
roadhog123.co.uk
Pronouns
He/Him
You can drive a minibus (Category D1) at 18 if you get a Category D license, Passenger Carrying Vehicle (PCV) license and Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC). With the same requirements, you can drive a full sized bus (Category D) at 20, but you have to wait until you're 21 to be able to drive it abroad.

These are the legal requirements though, whether a company will take you on and train you depends on your previous driving experience and their insurance coverage. A 20 y/o who passed their car test a month ago is very different to a 20 y/o who passed their test on the first opportunity and has a job driving delivery vans or something.
 

Advertisement

D

Deleted member 422

I imagion that you will need to pass a basic maths and English test (Which is probably about 20 mins long) so a basic maths and English would be good as you work with timetables during the day and quite a lot of money so you need to know some basic maths and speaking to customers asking for help or a ticket you would need a basic understanding of English :)
You'd be surprised the amount of bus drivers in London who can speak very very little English, probably because of the ticket situation, which means some rarely interact with passengers.
 
May 2, 2017
24
1
1
You can drive a minibus (Category D1) at 18 if you get a Category D license, Passenger Carrying Vehicle (PCV) license and Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC). With the same requirements, you can drive a full sized bus (Category D) at 20, but you have to wait until you're 21 to be able to drive it abroad.

These are the legal requirements though, whether a company will take you on and train you depends on your previous driving experience and their insurance coverage. A 20 y/o who passed their car test a month ago is very different to a 20 y/o who passed their test on the first opportunity and has a job driving delivery vans or something.
Not quite mate, the law worded in a bad way. You can drive at 18 in service so long as you stay domestic rules and have passed CPC and hold a full category D.

Insurance very much plays a part here, but most set a 2-year category B license holding to make sure candidates are over 19 at least to help.

You only have to take the initial CPC if you're 20, however you need to hold a full cpc to drive professionally so this makes very little difference to people who want to be a bus driver professionally.


1525965120376.png
 
Last edited:

Advertisement

May 2, 2017
24
1
1
I was paraphrasing from the DfT, which seems to be slightly differently worded:
View attachment 28815
Vehicles you can drive - GOV.UK

My source is also nidirect along with the government website. I called a few other operators up asking if there was any agree restriction. All said no, but 2 years required on cat B. All vehicles at all operators were over 17 seats, so would be D, as opposed to D1. The article you linked contradicts everything I know, and even other government article on the same topic (there are a few..). The process is very cumbersome to navigate as this article shows, but I believe the interpretation I posted is the correct in this case.
 

junaid1510

Join my discord: https://discord.gg/QB5bbH4gv9
Oct 20, 2016
465
6
471
23
Willesden, London
Hi all,

As some of you may know I work as a bus driver at a company in Leeds. Just wondering how well a Q&A will go down on here, be something for me to answer when I get board. Views are representative of me, not my employer, posts are to the best of my knowledge. Just I seem to be getting questions asking about certain buses etc and different parts of the job including the tests etc. HTH
How many hours do bus drivers work
 
  • Like
Reactions: XxGamerDude90xX

JoshYouWerLad

Top IRL Bus Driver
Sep 1, 2016
113
1
168
West Yorkshire
How many hours do bus drivers work
It varies, today I worked a rest day which was only 7.5 hours long (rest days are optional) but usually its between 8-9.5 hours. Obviously this doesn't take into account your break.

On my Rota (late turns) we only have 2 piece duties but on other Rota such as the new starter Rota (I've never been on it myself so can't give an opinion) there are a few 3 piece duties so either one driving piece will be really short or you'll have a short break between them and vice versa
 
Hi all,

As some of you may know I work as a bus driver at a company in Leeds. Just wondering how well a Q&A will go down on here, be something for me to answer when I get board. Views are representative of me, not my employer, posts are to the best of my knowledge. Just I seem to be getting questions asking about certain buses etc and different parts of the job including the tests etc. HTH

Could you post a scan/pdf of a running board? Doing a project on these - am creating my own as my local depot uses duty cards not running boards.
 

Advertisement

This thread is more than 5 years old.

Your message may be considered spam for the following reasons:

Users who are viewing this thread