(By Greg Rourke) – When I think of bus drivers, I’m afraid the first thing that comes to mind isn’t a bunch of happy feelings. I battled Chicago Transit Authority drivers in the Windy City for years when I was driving a truck. Big objects trying to occupy the same space with drivers both trying to maintain a schedule do not often lend themselves to hugs and high fives. Nope, the buses were not my pals.
Here we have a driver at what is clearly not his first rodeo. This is the Peter Norbeck Scenic Highway in the Badlands of South Dakota, near Mount Rushmore. My first thought was he royally screwed the pooch much like a big rig wandering onto the Tail Of The Dragon. He doesn’t belong on this road.
Look at that tunnel…it looks like they ran out of dynamite while building the road and just decided it was close enough for government work. But he presses on, he’s done this before. He takes a couple stabs at it, finds where he wants to be and slides right through like a boss. One wrong move and he’s knocking off mirrors or breaking glass on the tourists inside.
Ralph Kramden would be proud.
We’ve got a video from the rear of the bus and the front see both –
Awesome driving, for sure, but this guy’s obviously never had to take a big vehicle through midtown Manhattan. Same shit, but with horn-happy cabbies and double-parked eurotrash. Hit one of them and you might end up with a stripe. Don’t think the rock walls are as forgiving, so there’s that.
Like a glove!
Practice as they say makes perfect – I have a suspicion that they used an exact full scale mock up of the tunnel to train the drivers in getting through it without damaging the bus. Because if the did damage it, it would have let forth a bus farht that would have leveled all of South Dakota…
A few miles from my house, these drivers do this all the time. The buses do have some scuffs and NO they DO NOT practice on a mockup. The hole is bigger than it looks.
He wins because there’s a sign on the windshield stating “‘student driver”
Did anyone notice that\’s two different buses, first video is 803 and the second video from behind was coach number 802, this coach company has to do this regularly for them drivers to do that so seamlessy