Bus transport

Increasing numbers are giving up their cars for bus or train commuting and they usually say how relaxing it is after a day at work.

In fact they often fall asleep and miss their stop.

In the old days, I’m told, some sleepy UK train passengers used to put a card in their hat-band with their station written on it.

Non-sleepy nearby passengers would wake them.

The practice apparently went out of use when UK workmen began wearing caps instead of hats.

I often fall asleep in the bus too these days and go past my stop.

Last time I used the bus I tried to keep awake by halfbaking an electronic method of pre-setting the stop signal.

I got no further than dreaming of a wakeup-sounding, ruggedised, touch-screen route-map on the back of each seat, with which to program one’s stop - and fell asleep.