Bus

'Bus’ is an abbreviation of ‘omnibus’, the Latin for ‘for all’, as they were transport for all people.

The word ‘omnibus’ was first recorded in English in 1829. ‘Bus’ first appeared in 1832.

The first London bus service was established on July 4, 1829 and ran between Marylebone Road, Paddington and the Bank of England. The buses ran every three hours and passengers could flag them down anywhere. The bus carried 22 people, who paid a shilling fare each and was pulled by three horses.

The phrase 'busman's holiday', means a break spent doing the same thing as at work. It comes from the days of horse-drawn buses, when drivers were said to spend days off riding their route to see if their horse was treated well.

Before 1907 London buses were in different colors to signify their route.

Vaudevillian Jack Norworth wrote "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" in 1908 after seeing a sign on a bus advertising BASEBALL TODAY - POLO GROUNDS.

In 1912 it was reported that London’s 2500 buses were being driven so recklessly that they were killing one pedestrian every two days.

Greyhound buses began in 1914 in Minnesota.

Britain's first female bus and tram conductors went to work in October 1915 as nearly a quarter of the male population were away at war. Transport companies paid them less than men because they were regarded as less reliable.

Thick fog on December 12, 1946 in London resulted in bus conductors walking in front of their buses, holding lighted newspapers.

On December 30, 1952 Albert Gunton, a London city bus driver, was driving the number 78 bus over Tower Bridge towards Shoreditch, when the bridge began to rise to allow a ship to pass. He made a split decision and accelerated clearing the 6ft drop. Gunton later was awarded £10 for bravery.

In 1955 Rosa Parks, a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The incident galvanized the black community and lead to a successful year long boycott of the Montgomery bus system and the birth of the American civil rights movement.

In 1958 a school bus in Floyd County, Kentucky hits a wrecker truck and plunged down an embankment into the rain-swollen Levisa Fork River. The driver and 26 children died in what remains the worst school bus accident in U.S. history.

Before he was a movie director, James Cameron was a school bus driver.

The father of Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks was the president of Greyhound bus lines.

The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, the longest guided busway in the world, opened in England on August 7, 2011. The first guided bus left St Ives at 09:00 after the busway had been opened by Andrew Lansley MP. It connects Cambridge, Huntingdon and St Ives in the English county of Cambridgeshire.

A Go Whippet Route C bus leaving St Ives on 7 August 2011.

An Egyptian bus driver once tried to bypass a mandatory drug test by using his wife's urine. He found out he failed when his boss handed him the results and said, "congratulations, you're pregnant."

American school buses are yellow because you see yellow faster than any other color, 1.24 times faster than red in fact.

In New Hampshire it is illegal to inhale bus fumes with the intent of inducing euphoria.

Low-floor buses may be designed with special height adjustment controls that permit a stationary bus to temporarily lower itself to ground level, permitting wheelchair access. This is referred to as a kneeling bus.

Japanese bus drivers turn the vehicle off at red lights to reduce pollution.

Residents in Surabaya, Indonesia can pay for the bus with plastic waste instead of money. Paying with plastic grants them two hours of travel. The aim is to reduce plastic waste whilst getting more people to use public transport, thus lowering the number of cars on the road.

95% of Londoners live within 400m of a bus stop.

The lowest number not used by a London bus is 218.

Source Daily Express