waiters catching you with your mouth full

ah, yes. in my region it is customary for the waiter to check within a few minutes after serving to be sure everything is satisfactory.

*Muses*

What about a more general myth; 'What are the odds?'

Maybe a number of myths about things that 'always happen' in day to day life, with an eye towards testing to see what the actual odds of such a thing occuring?

For example; (UK) You wait ages for a bus and three/several turn up at once.

The lights will always turn red as you get near them.

The traffic light at the intersection of Avenue D and South 1st Street here in town (Copperas Cove, Texas) has a quirk in which it will, under certain circumstances, do just that. I go through southbound through that intersection at least twice a week with my route, and I'd say that the odds are 75%. All four facings seem to have this problem to varying degrees, and so it's not just the one set of sensors.

It's possible that this is somehow the result of it being so close to a set of tracks (the BNSF rail line cuts the town in half), but I've not encountered any such problems with the intersections at Avenue D / South Main and Avenue D / Wolfe Road (despite the latter being right at the railroad's right-of-way).




Another quirk: the intersection of North 1st Street and Avenue B has rather mercurial pressure plates serving as the traffic sensors, with the plates not reading you unless you've put your vehicle on them just right.

The intersection of Highway 190 and MLK also has quirky plates on the north and south facings, but I'm not sure if this is due to the plates being sensitive to certain weights or certain locations; my car for example has a hard time tripping the south plate unless I'm fully loaded, but my dad's truck will set it off unless the plate's been nopeed by cross-traffic.

Perhaps spin-off myths involving pressure plates?

As an Ex-Bus driver, I have the answer to that...

You know the particularly bad parts of town where even the police dogs go around in pairs?...
Well its the same with buses, we travel in "packs" for safety sake.



Sharing the laugh I just had, due to a miss read, I had to read that twice, because to me the screen just said
Perhaps spin-off myths involving pleasure plates?
Dayum!, I think I need new glasses.....



Not quite as irritating as the time I heard on the radio an accident closing a road I was heading towards, and knowing I had to stop within half hour to take my legal driving break, so by the time I get there, the traffic is going to be unspeakable.
Go Around?... I would, except none of the alternatives had bridges that would let me under, or over... IDW load that requires "That" route....

I phone in, the advice was park up and wait, do NOT set off until its completely clear, or you may end up running out of hours completely, if needs be we will send replacement driver.
Mind-Flip, what the hell?... I was talking to an intelligent transport manager, and they are rare as rocking horse dung around these parts....


The thread is going ever so close to becoming a "Sods law" thread.

Sods law states if it can go wrong, it will, and if its going to do so, it will be spectacular, and why not NOW!....
"What on earth could possibly go wrong"

Sods law is the full fat version of the "polite" Murphy's law.

Murphys law is the laugh at how annoying it can be...
Sods law allows for the full blue steam and loud cursing with objects being thrown the full length of the room...
No it doesnt improve anything, but you do feel a bit better...?.

There is also Jude Law who is a screen star

*Coughs*

Getting back on topic. Can anyone thing of any popular myth-conceptions about everyday life, as in 'this will always happen', not covered above?

We've got;

Waiting for a bus, only for several to turn up at once.

Lights always changing to red as you get near them.

Waiters always asking you about the food when you have your mouth full.

The second of these seems very easy to test - just drive around SF for a few hours and see how many lights you end up having to stop at (excluding any junctions where you are legally required to do so anyway). This strikes me as something that would be very quick to test and require nothing beyond a car. (They could also test this with a bike if they wanted to). If they pushed things they could do all the testing in a day, assuming they drive the same route at two different times of day to compare heavy traffic to light traffic. Even if they went for a slightly longer test it would still only be two or maybe three days at most with no real set up required, making this an ideal 'bottle' show if they are pressed for time or budget.

The bus test could also be viable, if they could work out a route and get volunteers to act as passengers. Work out a time table between two (or more) buses of, say, 5/10/15/30 minutes* and a short(ish) and long(ish) route that goes through SF**. Act as a normal bus, stopping to get passengers on (MB coins, good for one trip only) with two groups of volunteers per stop. The second group is simply told to get to the stop in time for the second bus.
This would be more complex that the traffic light test, and probably have to be filmed over a couple of days to cover any factors that could lead to the second bus catching up to the first (such as the first bus being held up in traffic and ending up picking up passengers who'd been aiming to get the second one). But it would be viable, and I'd think have enough there to test in reasonable detail.

(*Off the top of my head 5/10 minutes is the shortest gap between buses on shuttle routes with 30 minutes being more average figure for most services during the day)
(**It would probably be a good idea to take a look at existing bus routes in SF to see how long they actually are, and what the gap is between buses, to use as the control when planning the test)

Bus timings and experience.
Getting late is a bad thing on a busy frequent service, like the every 10 mins routes and such.
People dont turn up at the time they know a bus will be there, they just turn up knowing a bus will be along within 10 mins.
So any kind of minor delay, you are not only picking up the passengers you would have, but the ones that turned up after you were supposed to have been long past that stop...
Which of course takes time to load up.
Meanwhile, the bus behind is not getting its usual load, is not delayed, and it busy catching you up....
This happened many times when I was a Driver, eventually the bus behind would overtake, and start getting it in the neck from people who think they will be the first to tell you they have been waiting more than 10 mins....
So as each bus now struggles with the extra load and the delay of each passenger taking their right to give you an earful, they are in turn delaying you even further, and eventually you BOTH end up running late, and the bus behind (Number 3) start catching you up as well.

"You are late, I want to make a complaint..."
"Do you know whats making me late?.. every single person on this bus who has delayed me even further by holding up the queue getting on to tell me I am late..."

One passenger started shouting rude things at me before the bus had even stopped....
I let her explain to the queue behind her why I didnt even open the doors and drove away.
I do not have to take abusive behavior on my bus, I dont get paid for that.
We were also one of the first bus companies to use CCTV, so the video of her and the loud abusive language and threats stood as my witness.


Number 1 reason for delays on public transport is the passenger.
"That one"
You all know who it is, the one who opens the purse and digs right down to the bottom under a years worth of receipts, old bust tickets, lottery tickets and the like for the exact change.
They know how much the fare will be, and they are frequent passengers, is it just me or are they doing this on purpose for some strange reason to annoy us all?....
It isnt that a simple thought of "get it ready before the bus gets here" is too hard to understand... everyone else is doing it?...
They usually have a very heavy bag, on wheels, that they insist needs to go in the luggage rack, even if that rack is full, and despite being told a thousand times before that the driver is not allowed (By LAW) to leave his seat, will still ask that the driver lifts it in for them....
And then they do the "Dont set off until I have sat down" command performance, ....

And despite the fact they have maybe walked half a mile with that shopping, they will then make a fuss about moving someone from the front seats because they cant get to the ones behind?....

This isnt a day care center, this isnt a theater, this isnt a stage, this is PUBLIC TRANSPORT, sit the (beep) down already and stop annoying everyone....


People wonder why I dont use the Bus any more, its because by the time I had finished being a driver, I HATED all buses with vengeance.



... And just what is it with the people who wave at you from the other side of the road?....
I dont get this.
At first I thought it was maybe a friendly frequent passenger waiving hello....
So, as you do, I waived back as I passed?... with a smile?...
And suddenly they get all nasty like and annoyed at me?...

(This was for registered bus stop only routes, we didnt do the hail-and-ride service there, if you aint at the stop, we dont stop, we only take stop requests from people at marked bus stops for this service...)


And we NEVER stop for someone on the wrong side of the road....
We trialed the hail and ride service on one route.
It lasted two months and was pulled after all the drivers, on mass, refused to operate hail and ride.
Despite information posted absolutely everywhere....
People tried to hail us from behind a row of parked vehicles, where it was illegal to stop.
People tried to hail us from definite no stopping zones, like the middle of a junction, double yellow lines, half-way round a roundabout (Traffic circle) withing the zig-zags of a pedestrian crossing, from ON a pedestrian crossing, and in fact just about every stupid place you can think of to stop a bus.

And then the every lamp post....
I stop to pick someone up, and I can see someone about 15 to 20 yds away looking directly at me, I know they want this bus... they expect me to move up 20 yds to pick them up?.. whats wrong with them walking down?...

Not stopping for someone on the wrong side of the road.
We cant take the legal responsibility.
We do not have the things you have in USA where school buses with their sign out prevent any other traffic from passing the bus...
So the traffic does not stop.
If someone from the other side of the road hailed a bus, and it stopped, they get tunnel vision and cross....
They dont bother to look first...
And who gets blamed?.. US for stopping.

the catch to the red lights thing is it is credited with only happening when you are in a hurry. (or happening worse when you are in a hurry) it might relate that in some towns, the lights are synchronized by a timer, so if a person drives down the main street at the correct pace, they will hit every light at exactly the same point in their cycle. I think you can guess what will happen if they catch the first light red, and then it is off to the races as soon as the light turns green.

as far as things being in the last place you look, I frequently have that problem in my work truck. I will stumble across a thing that has been misplaced, and I will put it away in the correct place - then within a couple of days, I will need it and it will be playing hide-and-seek with me.