A day in the life of a drunk-bus driver

It’s hardly full, but still the noise of seven riders fills the bus. Three rows back on the right, a tan, slightly built passenger in a plaid shirt beats the window with his fist. His deadpan face conveys his alcohol-induced absence. The beats continue rattling the window with each thump. It becomes too much and Chandler Bryant glares through his revision mirror at the aspiring percussionist. “Hey! Chill it back there, man!” The racket stops.

It’s 1.01 a.m., but the night’s still young for Bryant, an East Carolina University Pirate Express driver. It’s Friday and his second consecutive night driving students from various apartment complexes to downtown and back. Tonight is Route 908 to The Bellamy, last night Route 907 to Copper Beech.

“I don’t mind the drunk bus so much. There’s always something going on,” Bryant says passing hand over hand to turn the large black wheel in front of him. “I mean, there’s the people riding the bus and the other cars on the road.”

Bryant, a senior criminal justice major, is one of many students employed by the ECU Student Transit Authority to transport students between campus and Greenville, but one of few daring enough to drive nights.

The Pirate Express service began in Fall 2005 as an extension of ECU Transit’s Safe Ride service to cater to students living off-campus. ECU Director of Transit, Wood Davidson, recalls the alarming stories of assaults and robberies of students returning to their cars downtown as what sparked the conversation about a night bus service. However, he says the transit department was limited by funds. “We didn’t feel like it was something we should charge for or increase student fees to pay for,” Davidson explains. “It wasn’t academic, but it certainly had a core safety function.”

The service began after daytime service partnerships grew.  Apartment complexes receiving the Pirate Express service cover the operating costs, while ECU student fees cover capital costs. “We’re using buses that, at that time of night, would typically just be parked in the yard,” Davidson explains. On any given Thursday, Friday or Saturday night, 12 buses are in operation.

As the night matures, Bryant sees his passengers’ state of mind change. Passengers fill the buses heading downtown from 11 p.m., but the first of the drunken passengers start to file back on bus from the downtown hub after little more than an hour.

A few miles down the road after Bryant put a stop to the window percussion, the drummer-boy stands and steadies himself against the steal poles. Recalling his colorful evening, he begins to shout labels at a blonde sitting in the arms of a young guy. She jumps up to hit him after he called her a slut. Her actions only fuel his performance. The name-calling continues and the noise level once again rises.

At a red light at the intersection of Charles Street and Greenville Boulevard, Bryant slams the bus into park. Lifting his wheel into its upward position, he spins his 5-foot-10-inch frame out of the driver’s seat and strides back to his clearly intoxicated passenger. The usually jolly worship leader at ECU’s Campus Crusade for Christ group, Bryant points his index finger at the passenger and tells it how it is. “You need to shut up and sit down. You don’t treat women like that! If you don’t stop, you can get off my bus right here.” The passenger sits,  and Bryant returns to his driver’s seat and accelerates off. The traffic light has long been green.

“I put up with a lot of crap, but that kind of thing – that’s not cool,” Bryant says over his shoulder. “I mean we have training for situations, but a lot of it is based on instinct. It so often depends on the situation.”

Bryant has been driving the purple and gold buses back and forth to downtown for three of his four semesters with ECU Transit. “My friend told me about [driving buses]. He did it while he was studying and said it was a pretty good job,” explains Bryant. “So as a sophomore, I just applied and got it.”

ECU Transit requires its drivers to acquire a permit, undergo 18 to 20 days of training before sitting three tests with the DMV. “It’s not a short process,” Bryant recalls. “Driving a bus is much different to a car. It’s longer, it’s wider, it’s heavier and you’re carrying a lot of people.” Pirate Express drivers undergo additional training in how to recognize and deal with dangers and unruly passengers.  

Once Bryant collects his bus from the depot at 10.30 p.m. each night, it’s his bus. What he says, goes. “I’ve been hit, hit on, sworn at, danced on and more,” Chandler says smiling. Last night he threw passengers off at an early Copper Beech stop. But, “there’s no fighting on my bus.”

Closer to 2 a.m. a static message comes over the bus radio – a fight has broken out on the Route 905 bus. Bryant adjusts the volume to hear his supervisor instruct the female driver. As Bryant passes Campus Towers on Cotanche Street, Greenville Police have just arrived and pulled the passengers off the bus into the 29-degree November air.

Davidson is not ignorant to the challenges Bryant and other drivers face. “The most visible challenge is student behavior,” he states. “Over time we’ve seen an escalation in the events of fighting on the bus, people being sick on the bus, people doing other kinds of damage while they’re on the bus, graffiti and then any general kind of damage.”

Davidson details the extensive attempts to curb student behavior. “Technology has probably been the area in that we’re most proud and where we’re working right now,” he explains. “We have GPS so the buses are being tracked and we can see where the bus is on a map, so if we’re having issues on a bus, if there is a fight, we are better equipped to work with law enforcement to get them to the bus.”

Crystal Trace, a recreational therapy major living at The Bellamy, sees the benefit of the night bus service. “The drivers put up with a lot – I’ve seen one clean up vomit before – but if there were no buses, I’d have to drive,” she asserts.

Bryant agrees. Although the Greenville Police Department has communicated an overall decrease in driving with intoxicated charges since the service started, Bryant says the biggest risk for him are drunks on the road. “I’m always watching,” he explains, touching the air break pedal slightly as a car pulls out of a nearby driveway.

Bryant makes seven trips between The Bellamy and the downtown hub before driving his bus back to the depot beside Pitt County-Greenville Airport. He sets down the bus, cleans it out and tops up the fuel tank with 25 gallons of gas. He finishes up about 3.30 a.m.

“Thankfully tonight’s Friday, it’s the weekend, so I can sleep in,” Bryant says, reflecting on his growing tiredness. After working his five hours at $15.25 per hour last night, he turned into his bed at 4 a.m., only to wake at 8 a.m. for his community corrections class an hour later Friday morning. “The nights are long, but it pulls in the money.”

Bryant will graduate in May 2012, but sees this job as something leading into his future as, hopefully, a parole officer. “Some people sit behind a desk, others in an office,” Bryant says, adjusting himself in this seat. “But this bus – this is my office.”