A white-haired woman sits on the bus surrounded by plastic grocery bags as the robotic female voice says, “Stop requested.” Her arm in a splint, she realizes her cigarette is still lit from outside and presses the charred, glowing end onto her outstretched tongue in order to put it out. Who knows why she opted for this method, but for Albuquerque bus drivers, scenes like these are just part of the everyday grind.
Bus driver Ted Silvers has driven Route 66 for two and half years, and he said drunks are the most common problem he encounters. If they cause a disturbance, he said, it’s his job to kick them off.
“I have had some heated arguments with people who don’t want to get off; they always have some nice parting words,” he said. “I don’t think I want to repeat them, but I always say, ‘Have a nice day.’”
Silvers said he tries to avoid kicking people off the bus by not letting them on in the first place.
“I try to nip it in the bud right away,” he said. “If I’m pulling up to a stop and the people getting up from the bench are stumbling around, I know eventually that’s going to be a problem for me, so I won’t let them on. Or if they come in and can’t even get their money in the slot because they’re so drunk, then they’re not going to ride my bus.”
Jeremy Perea, who has been driving the bus for about one year, said he was threatened at gunpoint once when he was trying to break up a fight in the back of the bus.
“He pulled the gun on me and the guy who was in the fight, and I was like, ‘Hey, man, why can’t we just be friends,’” Perea said.
“The other guy got off, and he just sat down and said he was ready to go. I said ‘I’ll take you wherever you need to go, you know.’ You’re not allowed to carry guns on the bus, but I can’t search people.”
Another time, Perea said a drunk man tried to board the bus, but Perea decided the man was too drunk to ride. The man became so angry that he pulled out a knife.
“He got in my face, so I took off my seat belt, popped the brig, and pushed him out the door. I had security on the bus, so I tangled him up. The security guard was hitting him with the baton, and boom, a cop pulled up. It was pretty sweet.”
Both of those incidents happened during late-night hours on the 66, but Perea said his job isn’t just to kick people off of the bus. He has EMT certification from UNM, so he can help people with medical needs. One night, Perea said he saved a man’s life.
“This man had four seizures in a row on the bus. He was peeing, throwing up all over the place,” he said. “I picked him up and put him on the floor. When they go into a seizure, you don’t want them to hurt themselves, so I just tried to hold his head up so he wouldn’t swallow his tongue. I did my best and called 911.”
While most drivers haven’t witnessed such traumatic events, they have their fair share of stories.
Bus driver Diane Atacus, a former school bus driver and grant writer, said not only has she seen people using drugs on the bus, but she has seen people having sex as well. She said they made no effort to hide themselves or do it discreetly.
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“A lot of people are surprisingly open,” she said.
She said driving the 66 is more difficult than driving a school bus, but she still enjoys it.
“With kids, you can tell them to sit down and behave, but you can’t tell adults anything,” Atacus said.
