Summary: Bizarre experience with Illinois Charter. Observed bad driving and phoned it in to 1-800 number. Bus Driver answered and was very combative.
[Additional Details below, my fiancee already provided a review below. Apologies for the lengthy read.]
Scenario: My fiancee and I were walking with our dog down a city street in Arlington, VA (D.C.) when we came across bus 757 of the Illinois Charter Company.
The light was red for the driver and we we're crossing the street with a crossing signal, which was in our favor.
As we were crossing, the bus was inching up through the crosswalk and seemed to not be paying attention. We safely crossed the road, but then another pedestrian who was in the crosswalk was cut off by the bus, leaving the pedestrian in the middle of the street. (The pedestrian gave us a "WTF" look, since it was such a bad display of driving and he noticed that we saw it also.)
The bus continued to make the right on red past the pedestrian who was in the crosswalk still, and the bus then almost collided with another car and horns were exchanged.
It was a terrible display of driving so I decided to call it in.
I described the situation above to the person on the other side of the line at Illinois Charter. Much to my surprise, IT WAS THE BUS DRIVER, who was presumably still driving!
He was understandably defensive about the situation, and turned combative. I told him he probably shouldn't be driving in a city situation. HE THEN RETORTED "YOU SHOULDN'T BE WALKING IN A CITY SITUATION". To put this comment into context, please keep in mind that he had a red light and I had the crosswalk signal. The pedestrian he cut off in the crosswalk and left in the road had the signal as well.
He also told me "I have a bus of 15 people laughing at you right now because you don't know how to cross." If that's the case, that is the most sinister collection of bus passengers ever collected. I'm imagining the Wicked Witch of the West going on a field trip with Darth Vader and the Minions from Despicable Me.
If I needed to charter a bus, potentially with friends, family, or coworkers, I would want a safe, professional driver to take them to their destination. Does this company sound like they could provide that for you?
Edit: It appears the bus driver responded below which I am not surprised by. There was a Google review from another reviewer that he was equally combative to, so he appears to have a history of this. Also, his version of the situation is drastically different of my version of the situation and reality. This makes me think he never saw us at all when we crossed, doesn't remember, or possibly another similar situation happened and he's confusing us with them. read more