After riding a school bus nearly my entire elementary through high school career and riding the RTS bus at UF for two years, I’ve had the opportunity to observe several surprising similarities and interesting differences between these two modes of transportation.
Obviously, there’s the differences in technology and taste you would see on the bus (like Kindles or paperback books, Lisa Frank Trapper Keepers or physics homework, and patty-cake songs or furious texting), but here are some more you might not have considered.
Similarities:
Both types of buses come in contact with passengers who are extremely confused as to where they are or where they’re going.
For the college buses, this can happen to freshmen, but mostly it happens after dark around 2 a.m., when the bars have let out and the stumbling masses begin to filter into any vehicle capable of taking them home.
Just like you wrote your bus number on your hand for the first couple days of grade school, drunk college students are mentally counting on themselves to remember which Later Gator bus to catch — A, B, C, D or F.
And when it comes to vomiting, I’ve seen it happen on both types of buses, filtering down the aisle in between seats, usually accompanied by crying.
Just like old school days, there will always be someone at least once who runs full speed, backpack flopping, determined to make it in the bus door before it closes. Sometimes they make it, and sometimes they don’t. But it’s always kind of funny seeing them run and not make it.
That hasn’t changed since elementary school.
There’s also a great opportunity for the procrastinators to spend the bus ride working on homework they didn’t finish. Unless the RTS bus is full, and you have to stand.
Which brings me to my next point.
Differences:
In the old days, there was no missing the bus just because “FULL BUS” was plastered on the front (I’m looking at you, No. 38). There was no worry that you were going to be late for an exam because of something out of your control.
The bus always came, and if it didn’t, your teachers would be notified, and you would have a legit reason for coming late or not coming at all.
There was no standing on the bus and holding onto whatever you could find because the bus driver stopped too short, and there were no awkward crotches in faces or standing uncomfortably close to a stranger who has B.O.
In school buses, you always had a nice, safe place to sit and catch up on your homework, trade Pokemon cards or feed your Giga Pet.
Probably my most prevalent point in these differences is the fact that in school, you pretty much knew the people on the bus and were able to sit where you wanted. On an RTS bus, anyone with $1.50 is allowed to ride.
And by anyone, I am including that smelly hobo that sits right next to you, even though there is an entirely empty bus, and you’re afraid to even turn your head an inch for fear he might start up a conversation.
In my experience, RTS buses are more awkward than school buses. While buses in the old days were relatively noisy in the afternoons after school, RTS buses are usually quiet, except for the occasional girl with the annoying voice who talks loudly on her phone about nothing anyone wants to hear; the only people spared from the speech being those who have become accustomed to wearing headphones, the universal sign for “don’t talk to me.”
School buses were usually filled with chatter, but RTS buses are usually filled with iPhones scrolling through Twitter or uncomfortable stares either at the ground, out the window or behind the person who thinks you’re staring at them.
Finally, there was never any weird voice declaring, “Stop requested. For your own safety, when crossing the street, please pass behind the bus.”
I can’t imagine any RTS bus driver that hasn’t had nightmares about this voice at least once.
Nicole Deck is a journalism senior at UF. You can contact her via opinions@alligator.org.
