It was a real incident happened with me 4 years back. On that day, I was returning from Vijayawada city to Hyderabad City on a high-tech bus. The bus was fully occupied with 35 passengers in it. The bus started on time and there was a clear partition between Driver cabin and Passenger seating area with a door for passage. After my desperate attempt to get into sleep, I could not sleep for about 2 hours. Then, I came to the bus driver cabin and sat on a bench behind the driver. I was observing the high way drive by the seasoned driver. Usually, I enjoy highway driving and I wanted to learn simple driving techniques from such seasoned drivers.
The driver was driving the bus at a consistent speed of about 75 to 80 kmph. More number of Vehicles were overtaking our bus. Our driver was cooperating and giving way for those overtaking vehicles. He kept our bus to a fixed lane and driving in that consistent speed. I was thinking internally “It being a high-tech bus, why the driver was letting other speedy vehicles to overtake us. It can also speed…”.
I was unable to stop my inquisitiveness and asked the same question to the driver. He responded to me...
"1. All the over speeding drivers stress their vehicles and risk themselves to save that additional half hour time (at the maximum one-hour time in most optimistic scenarios), if they reach their destination safely
2. Usually crazy drivers are not punctual. That is, they tend to start late at their origin and tend to make up that time during their journey by taking more chances on the road.
3. Also, they tend to take more break time in between (of approximately 30 minutes to 45 minutes time) during in their journey because their mind gets tired due to their alertness as a result of their over speed."
The driver continued…. "Coming to me, I made sure that I started on time so that I do not need to cover up any late time. Also, for this night, 35 passengers and their families kept their peace of mind and safety in my hands and are sleeping comfortably in this night. I understand the importance of my job. I do not want to be crazy and take chances in my driving…"
I started thinking the value of this great lesson and it’s relevance to many diversified fields from this matured bus driver…..