Every time a bus operator gets behind the wheel of a bus he or she is responsible for an expensive vehicle costing in the region of a quarter of a million dollars and countless other lives inside and outside the bus on which you can't attach a price tag.

The career often doesn't get talked about in the same breath as a Policeman or prison officer's job, but certainly it must rank right up there as one of the most stressful jobs in Bermuda. As well as having to manoeuvre 30-foot, eight-and-a-half tonne (up to 12 tonnes when full) buses around Bermuda's narrow roads, the bus operators have plenty more to deal with, not least of all unruly school children on the bus and reckless other road users.

"The difference now is there is more traffic on the road than before,'' said veteran operator Brent Harvey, who is the senior driver trainer responsible for bringing new drivers up to par.

"The older buses before were more difficult because they were stick-shift, but now it's a little easier because of semi- and fully-automatic vehicles.'' Nowadays all of the Public Transportation Department's 110 buses are either semi-automatic or fully-automatic, though different models provide different sorts of challenges.

"Everybody in training has to drive every bus out there before they go on the road,'' explained Mr. Harvey, who is one of four drivers' trainers. He is also the driver trainer at the Bermuda Regiment.

Recently two new operators were going through the gruelling month-long training course which prepares them to become full-fledged bus operators. They will join the 94 male and 32 female drivers already on staff, the 32 representing the highest number of women drivers ever on Bermuda's roads.

From filling out questionnaires to the driving course at a vacant area at the airport, the new operators learn the skills necessary to survive on the road.

"There are 140 cones that we set up and it's only after they pass this course that we take them to TCD (Transport Control Department) for their licence,'' Mr. Harvey revealed.

"They don't go to TCD until they pass this course. The way we grade them is they start off with 100 points and for a new driver 85 points is a pass.

"We don't want them to knock down a cone or touch a cone. If they knock down a cone they lose ten points and they lose two points for every cone they touch.'' But even before they get that far there is a drug test to pass and then a driver record check conducted by TCD.

"They have to fill out a green form which goes down to TCD who do a background check and if somebody has a bad driving record then TCD will advise us,'' Mr. Harvey stated.

"They won't approve of the licence with a bad driving record. You would be driving a public service vehicle and that comes under the Public Service Commission. If they fail the drug test we won't hire them as an operator.'' With so much responsibility placed on their shoulders, it isn't surprising that the driving course is rigorous for the operators. Even those who have been on the job for years have to take refresher courses.

"For the veteran drivers the passing is 90 so if a veteran driver knocks over a cone then he can't afford to touch any because he would be on 90 points already,'' said Mr. Harvey, who is nearing 13 years as a operator himself.

"We do retrain everybody and after a year we bring them in to retrain and do assessments on them. We do annual and bi-annual training of the drivers.'' For new bus operators there is plenty to learn about the job and much of that will be covered during their training which includes three weeks of both classroom and practical and then a week on the road with another driver.

Before they go on the roads by themselves they will have learned about the routes, fares and where every bus stop is in Bermuda.

During the "Smart Driving Course'' the new operators are taught about the bus, the driver and defensive driving.

"They have to think about the passengers' safety first,'' said Mr. Harvey.

"We teach them to drive for everybody else, not just themselves. It's a tough, challenging job that keeps you on your toes. It's a good job but not an easy job.'' The standard dimensions of the buses are seven-feet, six-inches wide, 30-feet long and nine-feet, 11-inches high.

The buses are manufactured in Germany especially for Bermuda's roads. They all have air-brakes which, Mr. Harvey explains, were designed for larger vehicles.

PTB (Public Transportation Board) operates ten different series of buses. They are categorised by the year of purchase, i.e., the first two numbers in the number plate identifies the year and the last two numbers identify the order the vehicle arrived on the Island. For instance, 9612 was purchased in 1996 and was the 12th vehicle in that series to arrive here.

The older buses in the fleet date back to 1979 and there are also 1983, '85, '88, '91, '93, '96, '97, '98 and '99 models. New buses are reportedly due to arrive later this year.

The newer buses, with the air conditioner on the top, measure ten-feet, three inches which, for one location, the bridge on Harrington Sound Road near the former Palmetto Bay hotel, allows for just a 12-inch clearance.

To pass through the archway safely, one must position the bus close to the centre line in the road.

"After we finish in the classroom we go out to the bus itself and teach them how to do daily inspections of the bus,'' explained the driver trainer.

"The bus operator is responsible for making sure that the vehicle is safe for the road. They have to do that before they leave the complex, or St. George's or Somerset.

"We teach them about the vehicle, from the chassis to the horsepower of the vehicle. The older buses have the Perkins engine and the newer buses the MAN engine. Horsepower is 128 and if you break it down to cc it is 6,354 cc.'' Added Mr. Harvey: "We also teach them the stopping distance for the bus itself. Stopping distance is very important, it coincides with your following distance.

"In three-fourths of a second the reaction time -- the time it takes to see the need to stop -- at 20 mph you can travel 22.5 feet and haven't even applied the brake yet. By the time you take your foot from the throttle to the brake you have travelled another 25 feet. Add those two together and you get 47.4 feet and you actually stop 17.5 feet more than the length of the bus, so at 20 mph a good following distance would be two-and-a-half bus lengths which gives you 50 feet.'' The steering of the buses provides a different challenge, too, because of the position of the driver in relation to the front wheels.

"The difference between driving a bus and all the other vehicles is our wheels sit two feet behind us, so our steering has to be done a little later than when you are driving a car or in a truck,'' said Mr. Harvey.

"In a truck you are sitting on top of the wheels while in a car you are behind the wheels. Because of the size vehicle we have, training is that intense so we can avoid accidents.

"Coming from a driver trainer point of view all accidents are preventable. We teach them the difference between a preventable and non-preventable accident.

Forty percent of all accidents happen at intersections.'' In Tuesday's Lifestyle: Accident prone areas for buses