Sunday 9 September 2007

Routemaster buses

From Christopher Booker, via The Purple Scorpion

"Boris Johnson makes the disaster of Ken Livingstone's scrapping of Routemaster buses in favour of ridiculous, Continental-style "bendies" the flagship issue of his bid to become London Mayor. Yet, as he coyly admits in The Daily Telegraph, "alas, I don't think that current legislation would permit me to reintroduce the Routemasters as they were". What he is too lily-livered to explain is that the law that would make it illegal to bring back the much-loved, user-friendly Routemaster is the EU's Bus and Coach Directive, 2001/85".

'nuff said?

3 comments:

j. said...

Yes.

CatWoman said...

I'm confused. Have they eliminated the Routemaster buses aka as we Yanks know it "Red double decker" buses??? Haven't been there in awhile.
Horrible if they did. That's what the world knows London for. That and yer kewl taxi's, letter and phone boxes. Dijja know that they actually sell those phone boxes in Chicago for about £500. People buy them for their pubs, shops and as a lark for their homes.

Mark Wadsworth said...

CW, the proper Routemaste double decker bus is the one with no door at the back, so that you can jump on or jump off at your own risk.

They were phased out a few years ago.

We still have double decker buses, but they have hydraulic dooors in the middle, so you can only get on or off when the driver opens the doors.

Which is really annoying when you are stuck in a traffic jam five hundred yards from your stop, and you know that you'd be able to walk it quicker than he can drive.

The red 'phone boxes look cute, but the doors were very stiff.