Urban myth?

[fifs2]

The 105 bus rarely stops at my stop...can´t be bothered it seems unless an inspector is lurking to catch them out. When I was ranting to my cleaner about this she sympathized with the poor bus drivers who she said were paid bonuses to complete routes faster and who could thereby be forgiven for foregoing stops if the traffic was heavy. Now the logic of this defies belief (passenger service hello?) but in light of the recent tragic fatalities could this bonus really be true and if so forget installing GPS on buses..just change the KPIs. Anyone got some facts instead of hearsay?

 

[Coco]

Customer service? Common sense? Here?! I think you're asking too much

 

[laureltp]

I was told that it is indeed true, they are on a tight schedule to get places fast. I don't know if this helps you, maybe you already know about it but I used the website comoviajo.com to find my way around the city, maybe you can find an alternative route to get to where you need to go. Sorry, I know the bus drivers are a bit crazy!

 

[arty]

Welcome to Argentina!

 

[French jurist]

Forgive my cynism, but the victims you read about in the papers are either old, pragnet, with a kid in their arms, etc... All lack a certain velocity somehow, and the easier to run over is by far the old people, they don't see well, don't hear well, etc...

 

[French jurist]

Other urban myth (?) : In the Codigo de la Ruta Argentino, do you have to cede passage to the vehicles coming on your right, like in every country with left steering wheels ?
It seems to me it's rather the biggest & fastest vehicle which has right of way ?

Anyway does any "Codigo de la Ruta" gets teached at all here ? I've taken the buyer of my old moto to pass the driving exam = no requisites (no need to study anything), no driving exam, exam lasted less than 10 minutes which only a dozen questions about signs. The gossip is : this guy I took didn't pass the exam (lol), the first sign was "one-way" and he was so stressed that he said it's "prohibido de estacionar" (true !).

 

[Hellek]

Yes it is true that bus drivers get a bonus each time they arrive at the terminal. If you go i.e. until Retiro or Correo Central (which are common places for colectivos to terminate), you will see that after arriving the driver goes to a kiosk to report (and after that, get something to drink, restroom, etc., they have human needs too). That´s for the bonus.
And that´s why they run red lights, exceed speed limits, etc.

The thing is that I really like it this way because I always arrive pretty fast (unless there is much traffic or piqueteros, which we all know happens a lot). In my home country there are bus drivers who retire without having had a single accident in 45 work-years. Which is impressive but means that buses are like 3x slower than in BsAs. Obviously creates some dangers how they drive in Buenos Aires and I don´t know where the right mix between danger and convenience (arriving fast) is. I can tell you though that with slower colectivos more people will go by car or by combi/minibus which will make traffic colapse totally.

 

[Churchill]

So it's O.K for bus drivers to drive like complete morons, and mow down and kill from time to time some of society's more vunerable members, just so you can get to where you need to go a tad quicker? Just goes to show how thick as shit some people on this forum really are.

 

[mendozanow]

I think many of the comments here are tongue-in-cheek or ironic. Take it with several grains of salt.

 

[SaraSara]

Believe it or not, colectivos have schedules - they must be at certain intersections at set times. Inspectors check on them regularly.

Sometimes due to traffic a colectivo will overtake the one ahead of it. The driver must then pick up the other colectivo's schedule, which requires maniacal driving. That is, driving even more maniacally than usual.