We care a lot... [sic]

With the temperature so low the streets are strangely empty of people as everyone seeks to stay in out of the cold. Even the bus drivers have started, grudgingly, to use the heaters on the buses and, on our local express, there is a note - in big letters - informing the dear passengers that, due to the extremely cold weather and in force until the 29 January, the bus will stop at any stop, not just the ones at which it normally slides to a halt. This claim is accompanied by a little asterisk on the page which directs your gaze to a footnote where, in even smaller letters, it explains about the exceptions to this information. So we discover that the bus won’t stop if: the stop is a regular one served by another route; the stop is too close to one where the bus would normally stop; the stop is before a left turn; or the stop is at the end of the line. Quite who would get on at the end of the line is beyond me, but it seems as reasonable as any of the other exceptions. So this show of a new, caring attitude by ZTM isn’t quite as caring as we’re led to believe.