Only poor people get the bus…

[EmpressOfTheSofa]

..I was told yesterday by a close relative. In the context of mocking me.

I get a bus to work. My bus stop is literally outside my house and ten minutes later it drops me off outside my work. I pay £70 a month for this.

If I drive to work it costs petrol plus £135 a month parking fees, and the closest two car parks are each a ten minute walk from work. It also takes longer to drive because of the one way system/bus lanes. It’s a no brainer.

But I got roundly mocked and told she wouldn’t be seen dead on public transport.

This was in the context of her admiring a new item I’d bought and I said oh funnily enough two separate ladies at the bus stop have also complimented it, she then shrieked with laughter and said there’s a weird contrast between having an expensive X and then getting public transport and that I probably look like a weirdo. That the only people who use buses outside of London are poor people who can’t afford to drive.

She’s bonkers, right? And a tad nasty? I’ve been stewing on this for a couple of days and shouldn’t let her rile me but ffs.

You're related to Margaret Thatcher? Poor you, although she's dead her nasty thoughts live on.

£2 a ride anywhere in Merseyside!

I drive and live on a train line but will soon be moving about 2 miles from the nearest local train station but with a bus stop at the end of the road that takes me everywhere I want to go for drinks in the evening. I’ll be using the bus with pleasure!

Depends on where you live I suppose.
If you're in London and driving in the city can be tricky and take hours to get anywhere, taking public transport is commonplace, both rich (maybe not the "super rich") and poor.
But rurally, I can see why some people might think so, although why anyone cares is beyond me.

Yes, in an ideal world everyone would have 1 car each which would mean incredible levels of traffic, and permanent lung damage from even more fumes not to mention neurological damage to the unborn. Heaven forbid you take a more sociable form of transport that prevents these things, or worse yet, walk 😱

Oh FFS. Thatcher didn’t say it. Try reading the thread.

Oh FFS. She certainly did say it, phrased differently. But you love what you love I guess.

Read this before declaring that a long-dead woman ‘certainly’ said something.

fullfact.org/news/margaret-thatcher-bus/

I hope that you aren’t in a job requiring use of evidence or the ability to question what you are told.

1. I use public transport both between Wales & England and around Bristol
2. Buses are cheaper than trains
3. Yes I am poor, because I work in education (I am a professionally qualified Careers Advisor, earning 17.5k a year)
4. This would so easily be resolved by a) better public sector wages, b) cheaper driving lessons / cars, c) cheaper fuel & parking fees and d) massive strides towards green fuel / affordable electric cars / very, very cheap public transport fares enouraging less car use.

OP your relative is grade A bottom-hole...they are very lucky they've had such an easy life!

Above average earner - use the bus where I can as it usually means I can have a drink and saves me using the car.

These snobs piss me off.

Also she sounds like a cow OP!! Try to slowly cut her out of your life...cos she's not just a snob, she sounds like a bully saying that stuff about your quals, job & hair, etc. You deserve nicer people in your life. I was an assistant shop manager for 3 years when I was young & its a bloody hard job (mostly because of the customers who treat store staff like your relative treats you).

In the UK all public transport schedules should be submitted to Traveline who upload them to (among other places) Google. Therefore you tell Google where you want to go and it will tell you what combination of buses and trains will get you there cheapest.

Not all countries are so good, in one region of Germany I visited you had to find out who ran the buses and go to their website, while in a Bosnian city, there weren't even timetables on the stops, so God know how the locals knew what time they ran.

Another bus stop wanker here, I frequently catch the bus to visit relatives. It's a beautiful route through the countryside and direct, £4 return for 40 minutes journey each way.

I work on a hybrid basis between London and Glasgow (where I live permanently).

I laugh bitterly when Londoners complain about public transport: they have NO IDEA how fucking expensive and difficult and just stupid it is in other parts of the country.

The most cost-efficient bus ticket to get from where I live in Glasgow to the city centre is a day ticket, which is £6.10: I would not mind paying this, were it not for for the fact that the fucking buses rarely, if ever, turn up (in a SUBURB 20 minutes out of the CC, it's not as though I live in a nameless rural hamlet) and if they do, it takes about 40 minutes to get into town.

Conversely, it would cost me £30 in fuel and parking costs to drive in, in more comfort and in about half the time.

So, no, IME, only quite wealthy people get the bus, 'cos they're they only ones who can afford it.

God, I made a mess of explaining that: £6 a day by bus = £35 a week, as opposed to by car = £30 a week.

Sorry about that.

Does your bus company not do a weekly/monthly ticket for people traveling in regularly? I understand it might not be useful for you, but it would be for people that actually were traveling in daily.

If I was to do two single trips it would cost me £7.90 return. A day ticket costs £4. But I can travel for a month for £55, unlimited journeys.

Also, your car costs more than fuel and parking. There's the upfront cost, the tyre wear, the oil changes, the insurance, whatever they are charging now instead of road tax, the repair costs, the breakdown cover...

This woman is an idiot, don’t listen to her! Rich people do the savvy thing that works for them. I get the bus to work and have a good job with a pretty good salary. Costs approx £100 a month, I am at work and home in less than half the time it would take if I drove due to bus lanes and busy car parks and I get dropped off closer to my work than the car park would be. It’s a win win! Oh and as busses are less expensive than car parks and of course petrol on top of this, I have more money for even more nice clothes! 😃 there is also the added bonus of being able to go out after work for a drink if I feel like it

its actually cheaper for me to go into my local town by car but shes mad to insist only poor people ride the bus

and very insensitive to yuo aswell

I would bus but train works better for me, whenever I go anywhere train is my first choice unless times don't work well, too expensive or too long. Why would I drive my car, putting miles on it, pay a fortune to park it in a public carpark where it might get damaged when I can get public transport, pay much less and have a drink after work if fancy it?

I work 20 miles from home. My workplace is so far in the wilds that it has probably never even heard of public transport. So, in that vein, I have to have a car (especially as all my colleagues are either very local or live 20 miles in the opposite direction to me from work). However, if I was in a similar situation to the OP, I would so take the bus (or train, as we have a railway station literally 3 minutes walk down the road).

We regularly get the bus into town! There's nowhere to park and my toddler absolutely loves it (although that does mean that everyone else has to listen to her saying "mummy bus" every 20 seconds...)

That's crazy, I get the bus all the time (in/around Brighton). I find it cheaper when on my own, and don't have to worry about parking.

Only poor people get the bus? That person is being provocative and stupid. So all people hopping on and off buses to get around a city are poor?! Lol

In Edinburgh ^

I count people who use buses, or any other form of public transport, as lucky! I wish my commute allowed me time for reading (remembers wistfully back to the time of 30 minutes at start and end of day) rather than dealing with the selfish and inconsiderate, not to mention downright dangerous drivers on the Motorways…

I was friends with a boy from a very wealthy family when we were teenagers. He was well brought up, had everything he needed materially, private education, good clothes etc but he had absolutely no idea how to use the bus and had never ridden one at the age of 16, so had this weird dependent air about him whenever we went out, and was completely unable to get himself from A to B, and looked fearful for his life about which bus to catch / where they stopped etc. Independence and use of public transport is a very important life skill!