Column

Christopher Hughes is the Roger Federer of quizzes. He won Mastermind in 1983, International Mastermind the same year, and Brain of Britain in 2005.

Only three other people have ever won Mastermind as well as Brain of Britain titles. Hughes' mammoth brain has benefited London Transport: he has been an underground train driver for the authority!

That piece of trivia came pottering to my mind when BEST announced its intention to run school buses. The undertaking is apparently worried because a lot of private buses that ferry kids are crashing into accidents. BEST's anxiety is unexceptionable, but its solution will invite scrutiny of its drivers' record.

And it will be not a staggering disappointment to discover that BEST does not have people like Christopher Hughes working for it. It seems unlikely, doesn't it, that someone who can correctly answer a trick question about Burkina Faso's literacy rates will ever drive rashly or indeed negligently?

I think time has come for BEST to raise the bar on qualifications necessary to become one of its drivers. It will of course be fatuous to suggest that all drivers be required to complete a PhD in surface transport, but isn't it an idea to encourage more graduates to apply?

I checked the BEST web site for this column, and could not find a link to its jobs section. I am sorry if I missed it, and I can only plead that it might not have been accorded the prominence that web sites of the transport authorities in London and New York give to their career sections.

The latter offers mammoth manuals for drivers, from which I learnt that although it is not mandatory for a commercial driver in New York to bring college degrees to the job, he or she is required to get 80% in a written test!

The drivers are also expected to adhere to stipulations governing eye and skill tests, and also submit their fingerprints.

Now putting all of this on the web site clearly means that New York is addressing drivers who can surf the net. And all surfers have a minimum level of exposure to education, and are connected, however tenuously, to the realm of developing knowledge, which refreshes the user's self-perception about skills and opportunities. In short, I am arguing the case to enhance the profile of the drivers that might infuse a bigger sense of pride into the job, which in turn will smash the notion that essential services are a low-class vocation.

BEST does need an image makeover. Its buses have killed 40 people in the past six months and have been involved in 157 minor and major accidents for the same period.
Six recent cases involved aged drivers, and the undertaking needs to examine if the drivers are losing strength to handle the vehicles.

BEST buses do not have power steering.That Mumbai needs buses is exemplified by the fact that the city has around 23,000 private buses; BEST runs 3,519.I will happily take one to work if I am assured that I will reach there without someone else being cut down cruelly.
Email:raghu@dnaindia.net