Once Every Citizen Acts Like This, We Know We've Arrived

My wife and I took a bus from Melbourne to Canberra in early July. It was an 8-hour overnight bus ride, which taught me lessons about how law-abiding citizens of a first world country behave.

Trust me this isn't boring.

The driver was a lady. She was wearing overalls and was a bit chubby. Not that it mattered, but it would help you visualize the driver.

All by herself she inspected each one's tickets, which were mostly just SMS messages with numbers from the bus line. Then she assigned seat numbers to each one, which everyone followed without question. She was nice and helpful.

Upon leaving the station, she started talking on the microphone... like a boss.

Some of the things she said were...

"If you're listening to music, please make sure you have your headset on. Some of the people in this ride choose this overnight ride because they want a good sleep. They have work tomorrow in Canberra. If I hear music along the way, I will call your attention."

I thought at first that was ironic -- rest in an overnight bus ride? But after experiencing the smooth ride, I thought, yeah, that lady made sense.

Then she said...

"If you call or receive a call and talk continuously for three hours, I am going to become really grumpy and I'd pay you a visit back there."

My wife and I looked at each other in amusement. But from the tone of the lady's voice, we really believed she meant business.

Now, the bus happened to have seat belts in each seat, not just in the front seat. Everyone was required to wear it. So we wore it.

But not everybody did. So, the driver said...

"Please wear your seat belts. They do conduct inspections from time to time and if they catch you not wearing it, they're going to fine you five hundred dollars on the spot. When that happens, I will cooperate with the enforcers. Don't say I didn't warn you."

All of a sudden we heard seat belts clicking all over the bus.

What I loved most about the experience was that someone -- the driver, as it should be -- took leadership over the whole trip and enforced policy with no small degree of firmness. After all, it was a long trip over empty space (ahhh, Australia).

You know what's most inspiring about it all? All passengers followed the driver's lead. Nobody acted like no driver or no lady should tell him/her things. The driver spoke like she was in charge (which, indeed, she was), and everyone respected it.

I still say, "Whoooow" everytime I recall that driver.

The moment we have bus drivers and cooperative passengers like that in the Philippines --- of for that matter, leaders who really lead and citizens who follow their lead --- then we know we've arrived.